Gull and Weasel

I don’t mean to beat a dead horse here. At first I thought the now famous photo of a Least Weasel riding a Green Woodpecker was fake. I could not image a medium size woodpecker carrying a weasel. Besides, a closer look at the photo shows the weasel “sitting” on the woodpecker’s back not “clinging” to it as one would expect the weasel to be on a flying-moving bird. The moment of take off and subsequent flight forward would have shaken off the weasel. If the weasel were to stay on the bird’s back it should look like it is clinging firmly.

I was expecting someone to break the news about this photo being a montage. I visited the Hoax-Slayer website, which is known for debunking hoax started on the internet on a daily basis. The Hoax-Slayer has a short note indicating the photo seems legit.

My skepticism was put to rest after watching the video I share below. A weasel attacks a gull in the water! In several instances during the video, the scene could have repeated itself as the weasel clings on the gull’s back, the gulls tries to take off with the weasel on top, but apparently the gull is too weak for take off. If the gull was able to take off they would have had the same scene, this time on video. At any rate it was amazing behavior caught on camera!!!

Written by Alfredo Begazo
Alfredo lives in Florida but grew up alongside Peruvian Meadowlarks and Marvelous Spatuletails in Peru. Trained as Wildlife Biologist, he divides his time between South Florida and the tropics where he spends a fair amount of time. Alfredo founded Surbound , a blog on mission to connect the birds, wildlife, people, and magnificent landscapes in the Americas.