coreymonds1

By: Corey Monds

Laughing Gulls are practically everywhere when you have the luxury of living in a state like Florida. They’re on the beach, near grocery stores, by the malls and maybe even in your own backyard. This bird is easily spotted and can be heard from miles away. One of my first encounters with this bird –when I was actually aware of what it was – occurred outside a Target on a hot Tuesday afternoon. I was walking out the store when a flash of white stuff came rushing past my shoulders. My first thought consisted of different ways to kill a bird but as I looked up I noticed it wasn’t just any bird, but the bird I had decided to write this blog about, the Laughing Gull! I should’ve realized their presence right off the bat, as they tend to laugh out loud as they swarm together in search of food. Or at least this looked to be the case as I observed them by my car. Couldn’t miss them with their black faces and the white circles around their eyes. Much different than the predominantly white gulls I’m used to seeing around. They would swarm, then land, pecking at the ground while laughing with their colleagues.

After this first encounter with them, I decided to learn more at the beach the next day while the warm weather persisted. At the beach I noticed an even larger crowd of Laughing Gulls. Many seemed highly social, communicating and flying with the crowd. Others seemed to be a little more territorial. One gull in particular was not having a good day at all. It gawked its head forward and backward as the normal gulls did as they surrounded one another, but also flew at birds that dared to go near it. Perhaps it had found a great source of food it wanted to keep to itself, but as I continued to watch, it seemed to be pecking at a ground full of nothing. Just as I grew weary of trying to figure out what this bird was up to, another Laughing Gullcame swooping in and challenged this bird to what almost looked like a dance off. Both lowered their necks and charged forward side by side. The gulls proceeded to look up and laugh, they would bend their heads toward the ground while holding their tails up, then come up and laugh again but this time louder and faster. Each continued to do this in response to their opponent until apparently realizing the other wasn’t going to give up. This led to an even- more intense battle of standing side-by-side, bending and gawking. Then, the smack down: the two birds flew at one other, grabbing at each other’s bill at every opportunity as if they were sword fighting with their bills. Then, suddenly, it was over. The intruder finally gave up and flew away.

What just happened? To me the gulls seemed quite frustrated with one another, possibly defending their territory, but could they have also been simply greeting one another or engaging in playful activity? Back in the 1950’s. Niko Tinbergen created a very useful guide on various gestures made by seabirds and their meanings. There are a total of 14 gestures but I saw just a few of those displayed in the scenario above. The first position is called the “upright position.” Here the bird’s neck is stretched out with the head pointed up, down or horizontal. The Laughing Gulls’ heads were pointed downward which Tinbergen found is a sign of aggression. The gulls then proceeded to a position Tinbergen called the “oblique-cum-long call.” The neck gets stretched forward and upward while a long loud call is being uttered from the beak. The body is then lowered so that the bird can end the call in a horizontal position. After this, I saw the “forward body position”. The body in this position is held horizontally and the neck extended. This position almost always means a hostile encounter is taking place. The last two positions I noticed were the “jabbing position” and the “chocking position.” The jabbing position consist of a series of fast thrusts with an open bill in the direction of the opposing bird – pretty much what I saw when they started sword fighting one another with their mouth. The chocking position involves the bird squatting and bending over with the bill facing down. The dorsal feathers are also raised and their head makes a rapid downward movement without touching the ground. This actually occurred before the sword fight and is also a sign of hostile engagement. Tinbergen’s field guide to gull behavior supports this idea.

Why would the gulls be so aggressive? I guessed that there could be one of two reasons: protecting a nest or scavenging for food. My suspicion immediately pointed towards the nest, but other observations proved me to be wrong. For starters, the research team of Burger and Beer reports that the breeding season doesn’t even start until May. My observations of them began and ended in the month of March. Despite this factual bit of information, I was still not convinced that this reasoning could refute my idea completely because what if they just decided to breed a little earlier this year? As I began to research a little more about this species, I discovered that they liked to “supplant” an intruder whenever breeding territory has been invaded (Fig 1). Supplanting involves flying toward the intruder and continuing for a great distance. This occurs 88% of the time but I didn’t see it during the battle between the two aggressive gulls (Burger 1979). There were also no eggs nor babies visible, so I conclude that nest protection wasn’t quite on the gulls’ minds when I saw them fight.

The next suggestion for aggression I could come up with was food. For starters, I was at the perfect location to observe this. Gochfeld and Burger says that gulls and terns tend to rest on water or near the beach when food was not available and guess what? I was near both! There are various ways gulls can find food to eat. They can pick up food, foot paddle, surface dip, surface plunge and even partake in piracy. Laughing Gulls in particular generally pick up their food (Fig 2). They also tend to eat more small vertebrates and garbage than other snacks like insects and fish (Burger 1988). Doesn’t look like piracy plays a big part of feeding amongst Laughing Gulls but they do tend to bite off bits of food that one gull can’t swallow all in one gulp. The gulls before the dance-off didn’t appear to be eating anything, so in a way I don’t believe this could be the reason for the aggression either.

All in all, the Laughing Gulls are a great species of bird to watch. They’re energetic, fun and filled with surprises.

References

Burger, and C. Beer. “Territoriality in the Laughing Gull (L. atricilla).” Behaviour 55.3 (1975): 301-19.

I used this article to learn about the typical habits of Laughing Gulls in their territory during breeding season.

Gochfeld, Michael, and Joanna Burger. “Age-Related Differences in Piracy of Frigatebirds from Laughing Gulls.” The Condor 83.1 (1981): 79.

This article was used to learn about the feeding habits of the laughing gull.

Burger, Joanna. “Foraging Behavior in Gulls: Differences in Method, Prey, and Habitat.”Colonial Waterbirds 11.1 (1988): 9-23.

This article was used to learn about the general foraging habits of gulls.

Burger, Joanna. “Competition and Predation: Herring Gulls versus Laughing Gulls.” The Condor 81.3 (1979): 269-77.

This article was used to learn about the mechanisms used by the gull to ward of intruders during breeding season.

Tinbergen, Nicolas. “Comparative Studies of the Behaviour of Gulls (Laridae): A Progress Report.”Behaviour 15.1/2 (1959): 1-70.

This article was used to learn about the meaning of the different bird gestures.