March 28:Thieves and robbers
THIEVES AND ROBBERS
The rule of the strongest, or fastest, clearly works in the world of birds.
The shore birds have been particularly interesting to watch because they fish close to shore, very often right in front of our camp site.
One day I was watching an osprey fishing and it finally caught a fish, rather large in relation to the size of the bird, and it struggled fiercely, shaking the ospreys flight as it tried to get a good grip on it and find a spot to eat it. The fish was too strong for the bird and it had to come to the nearest shore. The bird was clearly in a predicament; it had a fish that struggled, it had to fly into a strong wind and had thieves waiting for it to drop it’s prey
Other birds, notably a pelican and some gulls had been watching this struggle and moved closer to where the osprey had to come to the shore when it became obvious that the bird was either going to lose it’s prey, or had to get a better grip on it by putting it down on the ground first giving them a chance to steal it.
The fish was not cooperating and kept up a strong fight.
As it landed, the other birds were on the spot and chased the osprey off it’s still struggling catch. The pelican and two gulls made a run for the fish with the pelican winning handily; one swipe of it’s big beak and the fish could be seen sliding down its gullet. The gulls looked rather put out by this and the pelican had a grin on its face, as if to say”whadduyethink of that”?
The osprey in the meantime had made a pass over this scene, as if to dive bomb the other birds, but at the last moment it veered away, it’s prey already safely in the beak of the pelican.
The osprey went back to fishing and finally caught another fish. This time, quite wisely, it let itself being carried by the wind to a safer spot, out of sight.
I watched another scene, this time a cormorant, fishing from the surface and diving to to get a catch. The cormorant was in the company of another few birds of it’s species and all were busy catching fish close to each other.
This time, one cormorant had a fish but at an awkward angle in its beak. Some of the others noticed this and tried to scare the bird into dropping it’s prey. This cormorant was not having any of this nonsense and took off into flight. In full flight, it threw the fish into the air, caught it in its beak and swallowed it, all the while making a big turn to come back to where the others were fishing. It took its place among them again as if nothing had happened. Thieves thwarted this time.
At Campo Alcheron, a local couple came to the shore with a bucket full of fish offal. They must do this regularly because as soon as they were spotted a whole bunch of birds congregated near shore, hoping the offal would be thrown their way. The contents got thrown and a brief pandemonium ensued with birds pushing and shoving and screaming to get their piece of the action. This was soon over, until a pelican discovered a whole fish that was floating on the surface.
It got to it very quickly and had it in it’s beak, when suddenly, it dropped the fish and turned away, as if in disgust.
A speedy gull got the fish before the others could get near it and swallowed it whole. This was a sight to be seen. The fish was not small and it clearly took the gull an effort to swallow it, but it did get it down in rather short order, only to regret it a second later.
The fish was so big that it extended the belly of the gull and it was wobbling on its feet, clearly uncomfortable. For the next 30 minutes or so it waddled around, alternatively crying like a baby and gasping for air. It tried to regurgitate the fish but could not do so, probably because it was so big. It kept on struggling for quite a while, still waddling around on shore until it finally got into the water where it continually dipped its head under the surface until it finally swam away. Its greed must have caused it many uncomfortable hours.
But why did the pelican not want the fish in the first place?