Jordan Lake is a winter home for a huge number of gulls. Most of the birds here are ring-billed gulls. Next in number are the Bonaparte’s gulls. There are a few herring gulls in the mixture and a few lesser black-backed gulls. The birds spend the night floating mid-lake – it is safer there away from predators on the shore and their numbers help keep everybody safer from the bald eagles.
gull
TagUh Oh…
Jordan Lake. The amount of energy expended by one gull chasing another gull just to try to steal the fish… You would think it would be easier just go catch your own fish. However, seabirds often engage in this kind of attempted theft. The fish won this round as it fell back into the river.
Doc Ellen’s Natural Minute
Jordan Lake. The Bonaparte’s gull can easily plunge-dive to catch fish. In this video watch carefully and you can see sometimes they actually dive under the water rather like an osprey. However, the gull catches the fish with its beak and not its feet.
Jordan Lake: Fancy Footwork
A ring-billed gull uses his feet to help adjust his flight path as he goes fishing.
Jordan Lake: Fish Are Slippery
The ring-billed gull caught a fish a mite too big for his beak…
JL Neighborhood Visit 6 photos 02/07/2018
Its time to see what other birds, um, non-bald eagles are in the neighborhood.
Accipiters are fast hawks that chase other birds.
This is an immature Cooper’s hawk.
Just how many fish does this crow have in its beak?
Sometimes going away gives a spectacular view – this is a ring-billed gull.
The waters of the lake make a beautiful backdrop for this male eastern bluebird.
The American pipit is a winter visitor and a new bird for my Life List.
I almost always hear a killdeer before I see it and I better be looking quick for they zip past in a hurry.
