As we walked along the shore trail in Stanley Park, we came up on a gull that had just caught a crab. The gull was intent on eating the crab, as well you might imagine. However, its lunch had also caught the attention of a bunch of crows (could hardly call them a murder). Consequently, the gull was trying to find a way to avoid the crows and eat its food. It was not going to escape them, of course. Instead, it had to do the best it could and accept that they were going to get a few scraps.
It is possible to spend a lot of time watching a heron hunting without seeing anything happen. Their ability to stay still for extended periods of time awaiting prey is impressive. You hope you will get some catch at some point and that it won’t happen behind something that stops you getting a shot. One of the herons in Juanita Bay was having some good luck catching sticklebacks. The only problem was that it would often get other debris at the same time.
After the strike, the bill would have a fish wriggling around in it and some leaves or twigs alongside. The trick was how to release the surplus material to allow the fish to be eaten without giving the fish a chance to head for freedom. Clearly this is a regular feature of a heron’s life and the technique has been practiced but I watched with anticipation as it got rid of what it didn’t need and allowed the fish to be swallowed. The stills don’t give you much idea of how much wriggling was still going on as the fish went down the throat!
The shallow waters near the new ferry terminal at Mukilteo seemed to be a popular spot for the local cormorants to hunt. For a while, there was one cormorant almost directly below me that seemed to be having a pretty successful time fishing. A couple of times I saw it pop up and swallow something large so I spent a bit of time tracking it waiting for it to return again. Sure enough, it popped to the surface holding a rather large looking fish.
I am not a fish expert so I don’t know what it was. I just know it was still struggling to get away and, given the size, I was curious as to whether the bird would be able to eat it. I clearly underestimated its capabilities as a couple of quick adjustments and the whole thing went down in one go. I waited for it to dive again but, having had a few decent sized snacks, it was clearly letting its lunch go down. It was a while before it dived again. Just before it did, a bloom in the water led me to believe that it was making space for its next course.
While we were following the orcas, we saw a sudden display of power combined with a lack of interest on the part of the whale. We had passed a number of different creatures on the way included a baby fur seal and a sea lion which, while one of them had freaked out and bolted for safety, the whales had shown no interest in. Then, there were some birds sitting on the surface. One of the orcas decided this was a training exercise. It was alongside us and then dropped below the surface. I could see the silhouette under the surface and the acceleration was scary. A couple of pumps of its tail and it shot off towards the bird. It knew something bad was coming and tried to get away. It fluttered violently to try and escape but was overtaken by the whale and then vanished below the surface.
Just as suddenly as it went away, it suddenly popped up again and started fluttering in the onsite direction. I guess the whale had a bit of a play with chasing it and then lost interest. The bird survived to live another day but the whale probably never really cared about it in the first place. I guess if the bird could comprehend how little the attack had meant to the whale, it might be a touch annoyed!