A Gull's View of Cormorants

Herring Gulls, juvenile and adult

Toward the end of summer adult gulls know it's time for their offspring to become self-reliant. They begin weaning the young ones from gratuitous meals.

The deprivation provokes a chorus of juvenile anguish. The parents hold firm. They take the neophytes to sea to learn the craft of independent living. They introduce them to superior fish finders, the cormorants.


A Herring Gull harassing a cormorant while its youngster,
 and a Great Black-backed Gull, look on
 

The young gull takes the lesson. Its hunger and its genetic code confront the cormorant. It tests its advantages.

The cormorant dives, for safety and for food.

When it resurfaces with a fish in its beak, the young gull dashes in.

The cormorant flips the fish around to swallow it head first while dodging the inexpert attack.

Then it pivots to deliver a sharp lesson of life beyond the nest.

 

 

When gulls and cormorants retire from the contested waters of the ocean to the shelter of the Halibut Point quarry they leave animosity behind.