In old San Francisco, cooked gull was served as “chicken of the sea” or “sand hen”. Or so I’ve read.
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I don’t want to be the fun killer here, but there are discolorations in gulls that are actually quite serious. Two years ago I saw this herring gull in IJmuiden, NL:
It turned out that the grey dye is caused by mutations occuring around steel mills. IJmuiden is also home to Tata Steel Nederlands, so this sounds very plausible to me.
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Mine? Mine? Mine?
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Can’t really think of a more…English name.
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Still better than Rat au van.
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Onion is just one of many ingredients in curry:
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I’ve had muttonbird, which is pretty much the same thing and it was horrific. A friend cooked it pretty much as if he was roasting a chicken and the result was full of really nasty fat (and I’m all for fatty foods - chicken fat is a reasom for living all by itself) and tasted like mutton that had been marinated in fish oil. Only meal I’ve had where everyone took a digestive medicine afterwards (though the cat liked it)
Apparently if you know what you’re doing you boil the bird before you roast it. I can see that.
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Interesting that both these examples are from June-July, and that they look like adult/breeding birds birds. If this site is correct about UK gulls feeding their young at this time of year it could help explain why the bird went to whatever extreme that got it doused in curry?
Nothing’s too extreme for gulls. They have no fear and will go after anything, anywhere, that they deem edible.
The above happened in the next town over. I have lost parts of many beach picnics to gulls.
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I’ve heard before that the meat of fish-eating animals can taste unpleasantly fishy, depending on how much of their diet is fish and how recently they consumed it… I think it was in the context of whether or not bear meat was edible, the answer being “yes, but it usually doesn’t taste very good.” So I’m not surprised that fish-eating birds taste weird.
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Agreed, the default setting for gulls is “piratical.”
Just wondering what the constant demands of feeding their young does to birds like herring gulls and bald eagles, that routinely wrangle/fight over food, and steal from everyone; does it turn them up to 11?
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The future is bright.
The future is Orange.
Unusual color. If it had been a new species, they could have named it Larus Trumpi.
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I think it’s called ‘survival’. Birds, like those stealing bags of chips from corner markets, are not bound by human laws of property. Take it; eat it; survive.
Sorry, the distinction I made admittedly functions like a judgment, I see now, but I was clumsily trying to distinguish between gulls, which steal food and wrangle for food with gulls and other birds and animals (including humans), and the birds that do not have these behaviors in their repertoire.
Similar to how osprey and bald eagles both feed on fish (though bald eagles not exclusively, of course), but osprey don’t engage in the behavior of stealing food and fighting for food with other birds, and bald eagles do.
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I was surprised to learn that seagulls are a protected species in the great lakes region.
And also that pigeons and starlings do not even require a hunting license.
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It’s open season on iguanas in Florida. Too bad they don’t fly.
Which is a more successful survival mechanism? How many ospreys are around vs how many bald eagles?
I’m surprised the Dolphin didn’t eat the fish, but I suppose he could have been saving it for later.
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