Nature: Crafty herring gull impresses with problem-solving skills

 

A herring gull drops a blue mussel onto the roadbed below/Jim McCormac

Nature: Crafty herring gull impresses with problem-solving skills

Columbus Dispatch
January 15, 2023

NATURE
Jim McCormac

A point of avian trivia: Only one state eclipses Ohio in the number of gull species seen within its boundaries. It is California, which dwarfs Ohio in size and has 840 miles of Pacific coastline. Twenty-seven gull species have been recorded in the Golden State.

Ohio lags California by only six species, with 21 gulls so far recorded. That gap will soon narrow, once new records of common gull (a European vagrant) and glaucous-winged gull (from the West Coast) are formally accepted. These vagrants were found in late December and early January on the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland – one of North America’s great gull hotspots.

The default gull in Ohio is the ring-billed gull. This is the species that roosts in mall parking lots, forms flocks on the Scioto River and local reservoirs, and scavenges scraps in McDonald’s parking lots. Occasionally, noticeably larger birds intermingle with the flocks. These are herring gulls, another common gull in Ohio, especially along Lake Erie.

Gulls are intelligent, long-lived, highly adaptable, and situationally aware, with a penchant for doing interesting things. Perhaps no gull out-gulls the herring gull. The big birds are well-known for their cleverness, and ability to solve problems.

As herring gulls spend most of their lives around water, they routinely encounter mussels. Mussels, or clams, are hard-shelled bivalves and - when sealed up - are, in essence, living rocks. It would require a hammer to crack most of them open. The reward for doing so? The meaty animal inside, a gull delicacy if there ever was one.

Clam-cracking is a true problem if you are a herring gull with no hands, hammers, or chisels. But somewhere along the line, the gulls learned about succulent protein and vitamin-rich clam meat and devised a clever trick to open clams.

On a recent trip to Edwin Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, in the shadow of Atlantic City, New Jersey, I had the opportunity to photo-document herring gulls opening blue mussels. These bivalves are common in Reeds Bay on the south side of the refuge.

Ages before Isaac Newton watched an apple fall from a tree, leading to his “discovery” of gravity, herring gulls had learned to put gravitational pull to work. Hungry gulls would fly out to Reeds Bay, locate a blue mussel bed, and pluck a clam from its watery home. The hunter would then fly back to a refuge road of hard-packed gravel, and hover over it. From a height of several stories, the gull would drop the mussel like a feathered B-24 delivering a bivalve bomb.

The hapless clam would freefall toward an explosive doom, the gull flutter-dropping after it. Upon impact with the roadbed, the hard shell would shatter to smithereens and the gull would quickly seize the now-available meaty morsel. Speed was critical on the part of the hunter, as other clever but perhaps lazier gulls lurked nearby, ready to usurp the hard-won handiwork of the legitimate heir.

I’ve seen such tactics used by herring gulls numerous times in many places, including along Lake Erie. Many other gull species do this as well, including our common ring-billed gull. While this experience is, I’m sure, not fun for the clam, it is interesting to watch.

The oldest known herring gull lived to age 49, but we know little about gull longevity. As the global population is around a million birds, there are certainly older individuals, possibly even centenarians. An old clam-cracking gull has probably flexed a lot of mussels in its time.

Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch on the first, third and fifth Sundays of the month. He also writes about nature at jimmccormac.blogspot.com.

Herring Gulls, mussel-bombing

 

An adult Herring Gull (Larus argentatus) loafs on rocky riprap where the Barnegat River meets the Atlantic Ocean. I made this image on an epic December 13 (2022) trip to Barnegat Light, New Jersey, with a late day spur trip to the Edwin Forsythe (formerly Brigantine [they never should have changed the name]) National Wildlife Refuge.

While there was plenty of arguably more exotic fare to watch/photograph at Barnegat, this wise old bird caught my eye, and I seldom can resist photographing these beautiful and quite interesting animals. While some (many?) people disparage gulls, these are people that know nothing about them. A book could be written on the Herring Gull and its fascinating behaviors and history. I'll drop just one tidbit now, a facet of these big birds that always makes me ponder old warriors such as the bird in the image.

The oldest known Herring Gull lived to 49 years of age. But as our sample size of Herring Gull longevity is miniscule, and there are estimated to be around 300,000 of them in eastern North America alone, we can be sure that older individuals are out there. Indeed, it's possible that some ancient gulls might have a life span comparable to humans (or large parrots). Clever and adaptable, Herring Gulls have learned lots of interesting tricks, as we shall see.

PHOTOGRAPHY NOTE: I made the above image with the Canon R5, a new iteration of Canon mirrorless cameras that I have increasingly become infatuated with. In fact, my main trial run with the R5 was October 2021, to Barnegat Light and this general area of New Jersey. I have discovered that the R5 is friendly to the Canon 1.4x III extender coupled to my Canon 800mm f/5.6 lens. I've never been able to adequately dial in any other camera body to that combo, in spite of seeking professional "micro-adjustment" services. The Herring Gull image is completely uncropped. It wasn't all that far, but with 1120mm of firepower, it wasn't all that close, either. The 800/1.4x combo does lose a bit of sharpness (the raw 800 is stunningly sharp) and focus issues increase with distance as might be expected, but when working with subjects at a reasonable range, it works well. For much of the wildlife work that I do, more is better when it comes to reach. I'd love to have Canon's new RF1200mm lens, which presumably is perfectly dialed in and definitely much lighter than my tank of an 800, but at $20,000 it isn't in the current budget. Anyway, all of the following images other than the landscape shot were made with the 800mm/1.4x = 1120mm combination.

The wildlife drive through Edwin Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge. That's Atlantic City, New Jersey across the bay. While I made this shot on my October 2021 trip, this is the exact spot where the following action took place.

As always, click the photo to enlarge it

An adult Herring Gull has just dropped a Blue Mussel (Mytilus edulis) from several stories up. NOTE: I think I have the bivalve's identification right. If you know better, please let me know.

I think every time I have been here, there has been Herring Gulls dropping mussels on this section of road. This time, I resolved to obtain some decent imagery, in between shooting big blastoffs of Brant and Snow Geese, along with other interesting fowl.

Another adult Herring Gull watches his freshly launched mussel missile drop to the road far below. I believe the thread-like projections from the mussel are its byssus - specialized filaments that enable the mussel to firmly affix itself to bed sites. The byssus isn't enough to prevent clever and powerful gulls from ripping the mussels from their moorings, however. I noticed the handful of mussel-hunting gulls would foray into the nearby bay, and then return with a Blue Mussel. It did not seem like it was very hard for them to find the hard-shelled prey. I wondered why ALL the Herring Gulls didn't seem to engage in hunting this target. The meaty innards of a mussel must be exceptionally rich and nutritious fare. Maybe only the smartest Mensa gulls can figure out the steps involved?

It wasn't just seasoned adults that were catching and dropping mussels. This is a first-year Herring Gull (it takes this species four years to attain adult plumage), doing the same.

As I'm sure you realize by now, the gulls drop the hard-shelled bivalves on the roadbed to crack their thick shells. Here's a young gull holding a just-smashed mussel. The clam-cracking bird quickly flutter-drops to the road right behind the victim, as to not quickly claim one's prize would mean piracy by other gulls would likely happen.

An adult gull flies out to the bay with a shattered mussel. They always did this, probably to find a more private spot to dine in and hopefully a hassle-free zone from other gulls. For a Herring Gull, I imagine Blue Mussel is fine dining indeed; probably the equivalent of a meaty steak to a person.

Dropping hard-shelled potential food to crack it open is a very well-known behavior by large gulls. I've seen it on a number of occasions in widely scattered areas. But the wildlife drive at Edwin Forsythe is probably the easiest place that I've seen to actually observe and make photos of the gulls dealing with mussels, at close range.

TIP: This is a VERY popular refuge, and busy days bring lots of cars to the wildlife loop. Far better to visit on a weekday as opposed to weekends, if possible. Too much traffic really horns in on the gulls' efforts to use the road as a mussel-smashing substrate. From my limited experience here, the southernmost section of the wildlife loop (towards the beginning) near the can't miss observation tower is the best place to catch the gulls in action. And the end of day will probably provide the best lighting.