Red-billed Gull feeding technique

[GrahamB]

Don't know if this is of interest but at the time I thought it looked unusual - something I've not seen before. A couple of days ago Claire and I were walking along Waikanae Beach, picking up bits of plastic and generally beachcombing when we noticed a Red-billed Gull foraging along the water's edge, just inside the wave swash. It was running quite fast, in short bursts, head forwards and down, with its beak in the water (and possibly into the sand as well) - almost in the fashion of a Skimmer. It was clearly a successful technique as in one episode it caught a small bait fish - some of which we had seen in the very shallow water.

Has anyone else seen this behaviour?
Cheers,
GrahamB

[haggarty]

Have just seen exactly the same behavior at Manawatu estuary. The bird was quite aggressive in chasing off other gulls 'wanting in'. Water disturbance definitely looked there was a shoal of small fish so must be their way of cashing in!

[GrahamB]

Excellent. I was wondering if it was just a single bird that had spontaneously adopted this technique. A couple of others were fairly close to the Waikanae beach individual but seemed oblivious.

Cheers
GrahamB

[zarkov]

Whitebait?