Feeding seagulls
- Thread starter Miss Chicken
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Seagulls are flying rats. There a lakeside fish stand near where I live and they're nothing but trouble. Your food has to be covered with foil while you're walking out to sit by the water or the seagulls will swoop down in a swarm to get your meals.
Nobody feeds them around here.
Nobody feeds them around here.
I spent an hour once just looking up bird intelligence stuff on youtube. Makes one wonder if in an alternative universe whether they could have ever evolved to be the dominant species like we are today...I think they could have been capable of it.
dont you have keas in Tasmania or is that just New Zealand? they like to wreck cars for fun!
Keas are only found in New Zealand and I believe that theya re one of the most intelligent birds.
Maybe the gull species we get in Australia are slightly less aggressive than some other species. I have never seen a gull steal out of someone's hand.
Seeing people feeding gulls in my city is pretty common and adults as well as children feed them. In fact if I go on a picnic I take some extra pieces of bread for the seagulls.
Here is a photo I took a while back. It shows seagulls at a fish farm not far from Hobart.
The seagulls like to eat the pellets the fish are fed. These pellets are released from a chute and when they hit the water they bounce. The netting over the fishpen stops a lone gull from being able to get a pellet.
However the seagulls have learnt that if enough of them sit on the net it is weighed down enough for some of the pellets to clear the net when they bounce. The seagulls take it in turns to either sit on the net or to fly around catching the pellets.
Maybe the gull species we get in Australia are slightly less aggressive than some other species. I have never seen a gull steal out of someone's hand.
Seeing people feeding gulls in my city is pretty common and adults as well as children feed them. In fact if I go on a picnic I take some extra pieces of bread for the seagulls.
Here is a photo I took a while back. It shows seagulls at a fish farm not far from Hobart.
The seagulls like to eat the pellets the fish are fed. These pellets are released from a chute and when they hit the water they bounce. The netting over the fishpen stops a lone gull from being able to get a pellet.
However the seagulls have learnt that if enough of them sit on the net it is weighed down enough for some of the pellets to clear the net when they bounce. The seagulls take it in turns to either sit on the net or to fly around catching the pellets.
I doubt it. Birds don't have really have the same taste capacity to process capsaicin as us, which is what makes food taste spicy to mammals. I believe birds can eat anything up to around 350,000 scovilles, which is equivalent to the very hottest of haberero peppers, much, much hotter than the average person can stand.
You're hoping the person who asked will poop on her car?Someone asked me if I was feeding seagulls in the parking lot and I denied it.
I mean, they clearly saw me. So by asking, they were being irritating, so I responded by lying.
My motivation was that they'll hopefully poop on her car later.
I assume a Pastie is a snack of some sort. In the U.S., pasties are worn by strippers to cover their nipples.
And you think ducks aren't nasty? Ever witness a duck gang-rape? It's not a pretty sight.
Woody Allen said pigeons were rats with wings. But it's quite possible someone said that about seagulls also.
This sounds weird, but I love seagulls! I think they're cute. I do feed them sometimes, but we don't get a lot around here and I don't really eat while outside.
The words might be spelt the same but are pronounced differently. The pasties that you eat are pronounced par-sties, at least they are in Australia.I assume a Pastie is a snack of some sort. In the U.S., pasties are worn by strippers to cover their nipples.
I suffer from Ornithophobia (a fear of brids) but that did make me laugh.
I don't know about seagulls, but I remember reading something about the making of Hitchcock's The Birds where they trained birds to sit on people's heads and after filming the birds were released back into the wild and for several weeks after they would just randomly land on people until they unlearned it due to lack of food rewards.
There was a recent science paper on the intelligence of birds stealing french fries. I forget which species it covered, but they grab a fry and hide it from other birds, then retrieve it when the coast is clear. What it demonstrates is that birds have a model of other bird's brains in their heads, which shows an unsuspected degree of intelligence.
Meanwhile, the European starling that has been living in my attic has possibly found a mate - living in my kitchen.
I tried to evict the attic starling two nights ago, but all I got was a finger full of tail feathers. For a week prior I didn't realize I was dealing with two birds and kept thinking that the starling was just flying back and forth to the kitchen faster than I was walking there, so apparently I'm way dumber than a bird.
Meanwhile, the European starling that has been living in my attic has possibly found a mate - living in my kitchen.
I tried to evict the attic starling two nights ago, but all I got was a finger full of tail feathers. For a week prior I didn't realize I was dealing with two birds and kept thinking that the starling was just flying back and forth to the kitchen faster than I was walking there, so apparently I'm way dumber than a bird.
I like to feed the seagulls Alka-Seltzer and watch them explode. 
J/K
J/K
I know the pelican in "Finding Nemo" called them that.
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Reminds me of an old joke I heard:
Scientists at a marine research lab noticed that the dolphins under their care were getting rather...frisky with each other. Too much so, in fact. So to try and calm the dolphins down, the scientists read that the meat from a freshly killed seagull would be ideal for this purpose. So they sent one of their number to get some such meat.
On his way back to the lab, the scientist was listening to his radio and heard that a lion had escaped from the circus and was on the loose. Sure enough, not ten minutes later he *sees* this lion - sprawled across the road, fast asleep. So the scientist, not wanting to disturb the beast, tiptoes around it - and is immediately arrested.
The charge?
Transporting young gulls across a staid lion for immoral porpoises.
Scientists at a marine research lab noticed that the dolphins under their care were getting rather...frisky with each other. Too much so, in fact. So to try and calm the dolphins down, the scientists read that the meat from a freshly killed seagull would be ideal for this purpose. So they sent one of their number to get some such meat.
On his way back to the lab, the scientist was listening to his radio and heard that a lion had escaped from the circus and was on the loose. Sure enough, not ten minutes later he *sees* this lion - sprawled across the road, fast asleep. So the scientist, not wanting to disturb the beast, tiptoes around it - and is immediately arrested.
The charge?
Transporting young gulls across a staid lion for immoral porpoises.
For that pun, you should be flogged twenty lashes with a wet noodle!
I live right near the ocean, so I get a lot of Seagulls around here. They're quite capable of fending for themselves, so I never feed them. In fact, if you try walking down the beach with fries or onion rings or something, they will try to take them away from you.
Seagulls-- and birds in general-- are pretty cunning, so I don't doubt that they can learn to mimic injury or disability to be fed.
Seagulls-- and birds in general-- are pretty cunning, so I don't doubt that they can learn to mimic injury or disability to be fed.
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