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Daily Bucket: Friday Sequence, But Can The Gull Get the Whole Crab Down all at once? [1]
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Date: 2022-09-30
Visiting Golden Gardens Park on Puget Sound is one of our locations for finding salt water birds.
Google Earth map. Golden Gardens is on the extreme upper left of the map with a green label. The red ‘J’ is where Ms. JG and I live. Most of our usual birding areas are on Lake Washington.
The first sequence of the day began soon after we arrived on the beach. We noticed a gull with its beak in the water and wondered what it had caught.
Gull holding something under the water
It soon became evident that it was a crab. Most of the time, the gulls would pick at the crab in the water and eat it piece by piece, or they would fly to the land to eat it.
enlarge Gull had whole crab in its mouth
enlarge Only one leg of crab. Notice the distended neck.
Somehow the gull swallowed the whole thing. But it wasn’t done, yet. It took a hop up in the air.
The little jump allowed the gull to get a shallow dive started.
Down it went.
And even deeper.
The dive ended up snagging one leg that had fallen off during the first capture.
Ocean Diver posted a Bucket awhile back showing the way the gulls gain elevation allowing them to dive deep enough to get the crab that are a few feet below the surface. I hope she posts it again.
My second sequence begins with another gull capturing a crab.
This gull didn’t try to eat it whole.
Flying onto land to make it easier to pick apart was its plan.
Splashdown just off shore.
And then an even shorter flight to the sandy beach.
Sometimes, gulls drop the crab on the rocks to crack the shell. I was waiting to see if that would happen in this case.
enlarge This shows the size of the crab in relation to the gull’s head
The gull kept trying to get a better hold on the crab.
I don't know if it was planned, but having the crab’s large claw facing away was a good choice.
All the work getting the crab in the right position drew some unwanted attention
A nearby gull kept hounding the crab-holding gull. Little bits of the crab would fall off and the intruder would pick them up. This happened several times.
Finally, the drama ended and the crab-holding gull flew off down the beach, just as this Bucket is flying off the page.
Any sequences welcome. All sightings or comments welcome too, as are your photos. Join one, join all in the last day of September’s Bucket extravaganza.
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