Wim, Alan and all Birding-Ozers
I'm not sure I speak on behalf of all B-A's but you have to love this. Could
this have happened 10 years ago? Some bloke in the US emails Alan in his
leafy bower in tropical FNQ with some obscure request about Gull behaviour.
Alan posts on B-A and within hours Wim replies from frozen Tromso (70 deg
N), except he's on holiday in Germany, with an accurate description of the
Gulls behaviour and an offer to send the US guy a copy of his paper on the
subject.
Made my day. In a couple of weeks when Wim gets back from his holiday, I
have visions of a somewhat startled guy from Little Rock, Idaho trying to
read Wim's paper in Norwegian on the subject.
Cheers
Chris Gregory
On 18 January 2011 20:33, Vader Willem Jan Marinus <> wrote:
> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: im Auftrag von Alan Gillanders
> Gesendet: Di 1/18/2011 5:36
>
>
> Dear Alan and others,
> The description is a little atypical, but I
> suppose what your correspondent has seen, is gulls foot-trampling; here in
> N. Norway (well, I write this from Germany, in fact) this is especially
> common with Common Gulls, Larus canus, but I've seen Ring-billed gulls
> doing this before, when on a vhiesit to the US. What the gulls achieve
> with their trampling, is a liquefaction of the sediment, which causes
> animals of the infauna--worms, mollusks, small crustaceans-- to come to
> the surface where the gulls can easily pick them up. One can nicely
> demonstrate this by foot-trampling lightly oneself. I have earlier written
> more extensively in Birding-aus on the subject several years ago---have
> also published, but in Norwegian--, and this may still be accessible in
> the archives. If not, and there is interest, I can dig it up, and resend
> the piece when I get homne two weeks from now.
>
>
> Wim Vader, Tromsö Museum
>
> 9037Tromsö, Norway
>
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> Betreff: [Birding-Aus] Gull behaviour in eastern Florida
>
> Greetings,
> A friend in the states asked me about this behaviour, "Saw some
> interesting behavior I've never seen before. There were several
> ring-billed gulls, not our largest but fairly large birds, out in one of
> the shallow lagoons. They were standing in less than an inch of water.
> Several of them put their heads down, bills out in front in the water, and
> walked back and forth plowing through the mud. They'd walk 6-8 feet (2
> meters) stop, stand up, shake their heads, turn around, and walk back
> again the same way. I've never seen gulls do that before. I suppose they
> were trying to feed, but on what? Usually they eat larger stuff than
> little mud bugs. Oh well, chalk another new thing up to birds that don't
> read the books about them!." What would I know, I'm an upland rainforest
> birder. If you have any ideas that would be good.
> Thanks,
> Alan
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