Kenai peninsula, Alaska, morning, day two.

Gulls dominate this area. The mud flats at the mouth of the Kenai River are perfect for gulls. In an adjoining marsh, hundreds of Herring and Mew gulls nest. It doesn’t hurt that this is salmon season, and hundreds of fishermen are bringing tons and tons of salmon ashore for processing. We’ll be at one of the processing plants this evening, when the boats have returned and the fish are being cleaned.
The heads and guts are ground up and piped into the harbor. This creates gull heaven. We expect to see thousands of birds. The photo is an event we encountered along one of the beach access roads. A Bonaparte’s Gull, injured before we arrived, was being attacked by a Herring Gull. The latter pulled feathers from the injured but alive bird. The Herring Gull gave every indication of viewing the injured bird as a meal. Our presence eventually spooked the Herring Gull, and it flew away. The Bonaparte’s Gull died. Mew Gulls came to investigate the dead bird, but showed only passing interest.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 7th, 2008 at 4:26 pm and is filed under Bird interactions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.