Gull behaviour: drop, catch, repeat (1 Viewer)

We were in the car on the way to Clumber Park today and pulled up at a junction whilst still in the city. There was a gull (probably BHG) flying around above some buildings in front of us, doing something a bit odd (or maybe not so odd?).

It had something in its bill (probably a scrap of food) and was flying upwards a few feet (from its current position, not from the ground), dropping it and diving down to catch it again (in it's bill). This was repeated almost immediately, over and over with success for the whole time we were there (and probably after we'd moved on).

Has anyone else witnessed this kind of behaviour? How common is it? Was it training itself or its young for when it accidentally drops food?

Yup. Saw it last week, in fact. I think it's shell fish, which they try to break by dropping from a height.

I saw a med. gull being harrassed by some BHGs and it was doing exactly the same thing, possibly to confuse the BHGs.
Normally if they're dropping them to break them, they just let it go, don't they? Or maybe if they see that something else might nip in there and snaffle it, they catch it again and wait for them to clear off.
I dunno.

Ben,

I've seen this behaviour only a couple of times, and heard it reported several times. Personally, I think it is in your terms "training itself", and I would say it is just "playing". OK, I know playing is an anthropomorphic term but whatever word we use, I think it's the same thing the Polar Bear cubs were doing on Planet Earth.

I watched a group of black-headed gulls recently having an elaborate fight, drop, race to retrieve "game" with a piece of pondweed. I am sure there was nothing special about this bit of pondweed from all the other bits on the pond. None of the gulls wanted to eat it, but all wanted to 'play' with it.

Graham

Thanks everyone. In this case there was no breaking involved, just repeated drop and catch.

I posted the same report on our local wildlife group's mailing list and someone else suggested the same game idea.

In the mid-seventies at Rye Harbour in Sussex I often witnessed similar behaviour. It involved Herring Gulls, loafing on the Ternery Pool during a stiff breze: Occasionally a gull would pick up a stone (piece of shingle), fly vertically upwards on the breeze, drop the stone and plummet down after it in an attempt to catch it again. More often than not, they succeeded. I learnt then, that birds were not mindless, unthinking critters, living solely by predetermined instinct, but that they could enjoy life and invent games to play. Well after all, they live into their thirties - it would be a pretty dull 30 years without some play!

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It made my day to think that birds can enjoy life in this way.