Now, if you think this sounds very much like a rhetorical question, you are right. However, you are wrong if you think the question has nothing to do with birds.
The question was phrased by Peter Rock, a Bristol-based expert in urban gulls (source). It highlights the highly eclectic food taste of gulls (“food is food”), which, along with their apparently ironclad stomachs, allows them to eat French fries, hamburgers, bread, ice cream, or even the half-digested food of a concert-goer distributed at a music festival after excessive alcohol consumption.
Indeed, gulls eat a great variety of things – and scientists want to know more about this. One, Alice Risely of Salford University, has even set up a website appropriately titled “Gulls Eating Stuff“, and asks people to post photos of gulls eating. On the site, she explains, “We want to know all the weird and wonderful things gulls eat … whilst also having a bit of fun!”
According to Risely, the gulls observe what humans eat – and if they do, it is a cue for them to regard that item as food (though frankly, I am not sure this applies to the Glastonbury vomit).
Other research also indicates the gulls’ high power of observation. Apparently, they only hang around schools on weekdays, knowing that pickings will be slim on weekends, while knowing the routes and weekdays of garbage trucks and positioning themselves accordingly.
The gull experts also have one suggestion to avoid gulls from snatching food from you, as happened to fellow 10,000 Birds writer Sara: stare at the gull. Apparently, it takes a gull about 20 seconds longer to grab your food if it realizes it is being watched. According to the researcher, “It’s like shoplifting – you wouldn’t look at a shopkeeper whilst stealing from them!”
Cover photo: Slaty-backed Gull eating a starfish at Akkeshi, Hokkaido in February 2024
Leave a Comment