Big Gulps~

On By cindy knokeIn Birds, Conservation, MY PHOTOGRAPHS, REVERIES, TRAVEL REVIEWS

Hungry gull,

in Coeur d’Alene Idaho,

doesn’t believe in catch and release,

and never feels too full to fly!

Yellow billed stork in Kruger National Park catches catfish at Sunset Dam,

and needs a leg up to swallow it whole!

Cheers to you from your feast & fly feathered fowl friends~

196 thoughts on “Big Gulps~”

  9. Fun photos. Not like Pelicans with beaks too big for their bellies.
    Finally managed to start getting notices when you post. Haven’t had any in over a year. Thought covid had closed you down.

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  20. Great pics Cindy. Once I watched a young gull swallow a big starfish whole. I was a bit worried about it. It took a very long time for the gull to finally get the starfish down and for a while I thought it was going to choke on it. That’s one enormous fish the gull has!
    Alison

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  31. Wow. These are astounding photos! I recently spent time at a shared family cottage in upstate NY on Cayuga lake. One of my nephews was catching small invasive fish (round gobies) off the end of the dock and leaving them for sea gulls to eat. The sea gulls were very careful to eat each one head first so that the fish’s fins and spines would not get stuck in their digestive tracts. These birds must have extraordinary digestive strength to be able to break down a whole fish — which has not been chewed into smaller pieces before swallowing! Thank you for documenting and sharing these moments of life — and death — here on planet earth.

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    1. Thank you Will for such a thoughtful and interesting response. Yes, swallowing head first so the spines are flat makes perfect sense. The thing I couldn’t believe was that the gull not only swallowed this live and whole, but then flew immediately away. I wonder how on earth it could breathe or fly. დ

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  35. Unbelievable, how the gull can swallow this size fish. Cindy, you probably photoshoped this picture, didn’t you? I am just kidding.
    When I see this kind of action, I understand, human is not even close to the wild world. Lol…

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  43. You’ve got some great shots of feeding time, Cindy — thank you for showing us up close what many of us never get the opportunity to see. Hungry birdies!

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  58. That’s impressive! I was riding a bike on Sanibel Island once and looked up to see a bird (I think an osprey) with a bird in its mouth. I was so interested in it that I almost rode straight into a light pole! You were wise to simply stand still and take photos!

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  75. I could spend all day watching the gulls fish for dinner while vacationing at the beach. We had a couple of herons that often visited our yard looking for dinner in the lake behind our last house. Even though to us, they looked like they “bit off more than they could chew,” nothing ever seemed too big a catch for the heron. Great photos, Cindy!

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