Day 206: Great Black-backed Gull

The Great Black-backed Gull is the largest gull in the world. It breeds on the European and North American coasts and islands of the North Atlantic. We see this species fairly often when we take a trip to Maryland's eastern shore.

Great Black-backed Gulls are opportunistic and get most of their food from scavenging and capturing fish. I didn't realize this, but they are also highly predatory and frequently hunt and kill smaller prey themselves, behaving more like a raptor. The details get a little gruesome...according to Wikipedia:

"The Great Black-backed Gull relies on aggression, physical strength and endurance when hunting, seizing the prey, muscling it into a position where it cannot escape and is unable to fight back effectively (e.g. pinning it to the ground, or holding it aloft) and allowing it to struggle to exhaustion. At this point, the gull will reposition its grip and attempt to break the prey's neck with a bite or vigorous shake, or dispatch it with hammer blows to the skull from the beak. The Great Black-backed Gull may also attempt to use the environment to its advantage, attempting to hold the prey animal's head under water so as to drown it, smashing its skull against the ground, or a rock, or dropping it from a height onto a hard surface and following up with a diving strike from the beak."