Black-headed gull has no time for egrets
Country Notebook
IT is a mystery, to me at least, why some species of bird seem to get on just fine with those that are different, feeding together and flying together, while others simply won’t tolerate an interloper they define as a danger.
Rooks and crows mobbing birds of prey makes sense, since there is a fair chance the raptor might pose a threat, particularly to the young of those doing the mobbing. Corvids are also particularly territorial and an aggressive bird of prey in the neighbourhood is not welcome – hence the mobbing to drive it away.
But the “attack” I witnessed the other day involved two species that, I would have thought, got along just fine.
We have a fair number of little egrets on the estuary near here and they feed in the shallows on small fish, hunting with care, dagger-like beak poised, ever-ready to strike.
One was going about his business as I walked along the edge of the estuary with the dog when a raucous black-headed gull – sporting its winter plumage with a mainly white head with just a couple of brown splotches – started relentlessly divebombing the egret. As anyone who has spent any time watching these elegant all-white wading birds will know, they have thin legs with prominent knee joints.
This one appeared only mildly annoyed to be constantly under attack from a gull. He bobbed his head, bending at the knee, every time the gull moved in for attack and, in between the bouts of aerial bombardment, went back to searching the shallows for fish.
One study I have seen online suggests that gulls attack egrets and other waders to steal the food they may have caught; I cannot imagine a gull would see the egret itself as prey but it might fancy taking the spoils of a successful egret’s hunt.
The attack – which must have expended a lot of gull energy – went on for several minutes until, eventually, the gull gave up and moved on, leaving the egret to keep on hunting in peace.