Ft. Wayne, Indiana

SeaBen's Bird Babbles

Very Smart Seagull

Birds are often smarter than we give them credit for being. On a recent trip to the beach in Florida, at the risk of angering the other beach goers nearby I feed a lone seagull a chip that I was eating from a bag of snack mix. Well, I am sure you can guess what happened next, the one gull starts squawking like crazy and calls ALL his buddies in from a one mile radius.  Being the soft hearted bird lover that I am, I couldn't resist the temptation to broadcast a few more goodies to his gang.  Interestingly, contained in my snack mix were some pretzels, and while all the other chips, cheese crunches, etc. were inhaled, all the gulls turned up their beaks at the pretzels and scolded me for something different.  I said to my wife (Renee), "I can't believe these junk food junkies won't eat pretzels!" As the standoff continued, I commented that maybe they are too hard or too big, and if they were smart like a raccoon they would take the pretzels down to the surf to soften them.  About ten minutes later most of the gulls had moved on to another softie down the beach, but out of the remaining gulls, one of them finally picked up a whole pretzel and flew off with it to the surf. After watching the gull drop it into the shallow water and flick it around a few times, he apparently got the consistency just right and ate it.  Next, I watched this one smart gull go back and forth with the remaining pretzels and have a full meal while his other, not so smart friends, continued to beg for something easier to eat.  I was impressed with how resourceful this one gull was, and surprised the other gulls didn't copy his learned behavior.