Is this supposed to happen? This isn’t a normal thing, right?
Usually seagulls are just viewed as annoying, beach-going birds, or they are randomly hanging out in parking lots looking for mall-goers’ dropped french fries. However, I have never seen them eat a fully grown squirrel, like this one does in this video.
Gulls are opportunistic feeders with diets mostly consisting of fish and other marine wildlife, as well as arthropods and insects and earthworms. The food that they eat really depends on their circumstances, with the birds eating more of a land-based diet during their season for breeding and spending their non-breeding season feeding on marine life.
So I’m no seagull expert, but based on that information, I would guess that this bird’s unique meal took place during its breeding season.
When you really break this video down, I’m sure a squirrel and a fish probably weigh about the same. If you imagine the gull throwing back a fish of the equivalent weight, it would still garner a “wow look at that” reaction, but you would also just think “well that’s normal.”
However, when you see a furry, bushy tailed squirrel getting eaten whole by a bird that’s just a touch bigger than the tree rodent, for some reason it’s harder to digest (I mean that both in the literal sense and the figurative). I can’t imagine that seagull’s stomach was feeling that great once it eventually got it down.
When the video picks up, the bird is already a long ways into throwing the squirrel down its gullet. It’s unclear whether or not the squirrel was alive or not when the gull came upon it, but it being alive or dead didn’t matter to the bird.
Considering the footage is shot next to a road, there’s a good chance that the squirrel was hit by a car, and the seagull just decided to swoop in for a free meal. It spends the entire two minutes trying to swallow the entire squirrel, but even once it flies off, part of the tail is still hanging out of its mouth (how was it breathing?).
And speaking of getting hit by cars, the seagull has a pretty close call as it takes off to digest the squirrel in its entirety.
Take a look:
Seagull Pays The Ultimate Price For Stealing A French Fry
There is a reason that sea lions are named after one of the most powerful big cats in the animal kingdom.
Despite most famously being known for getting eaten by great whites and for their leading roles in countless viral airborne shark attack videos, sea lions are formidable predators in their own right.
Reaching lengths of up to 8 feet and tipping the scales at over 200 pounds they typically swim at about 18 mph and are capable of reaching speeds of up to 35 mph. They also have a voracious appetite, routinely consuming 15 – 35 pounds of food in a single feeding session.
They typically eat fish, squid, clams, and crabs. They are also known to frequently eat seals, which are commonly confused with sea lions.
Though closely related, the two are completely different species with differences in their anatomy and physiology as well as some varying behavioral traits. For example, sea lions have external ear flaps and the ability to walk on land using their front flippers.
Sea lions also have much louder vocalizations than seals.
This particular sea lion was just out here snacking on an onlooker’s leftover French fries when a seagull tried to get in on some of the action.
Not a smart move for the bird…
The poor bird literally got its head ripped off for messing with the sea lion’s snack…. brutal.
It wasn’t a clean bite either, that poor bird got shook around like a dirty gym sock in a big dog’s mouth.
Nature is not for the faint of heart, people.
Bald Eagle Attacks Seagull On The Golf Course
What’s more American than waking up in the morning, drinking a cup of Folgers, hopping into your Chevy pickup truck, and hitting the golf course with your buds while a majestic Bald Eagle soars across the sky above?
Nothing. That’s what.
Well… unfortunately this video comes to us from Canada so you can ignore the USA speech entirely.
Here we see a Bald Eagle flying around a golf course in Vancouver (the irony), and it ends up chasing down a seagull. The Eagle took the gull with its talons and pulled it straight to the ground.
As the caption to the Instagram post says, Bald Eagles often times prefer the road of least resistance, but they don’t always take the easy route:
“Rather than track down and murder something everytime they’re hungry, bald eagles will more often than not take the easy way out and steal food off of other predators and/or scavenge roadkill.
This is the reason Benjamin Franklin was not keen on having the bald eagle represent the United States of America, because in his opinion the bird possessed “bad moral character” and “he (the eagle) does not get his living honestly.”
He wasn’t entirely wrong, but they will obviously take matters into their own talons when it suits them.”
How cool is this video though?
Imagine playing an early round of golf with your buddies and seeing a Bald Eagle swoop in out of nowhere. Beats the hell outta getting gored by an elk, eh?
If you listen to the video real closely, I’m sure you can hear an Aaron Tippin song playing somewhere:
Bald Eagle Drowns Young Fawn At Edge Of A Lake
Nature is brutal, man.
According to MeatEater, this video comes to us from Lake Noquebay in Marinette County, Wisconsin.
We can see a young whitetail fawn swimming in the shallow shoreline waters of the lake when a bald eagle drops in and lands right on its back. With its sharp talons piercing the back of the helpless fawn, the eagle pushes it deeper into the water, drowning its next meal.
“The eagle flew away after drowning the fawn and dragging it to shore.
The raptor returned to feed on the deer over the next four days until the only thing left was tufts of hair.”
And there was nothing left of that fawn…
‘Merica.
