Bird-on-bird crime.
You’ve probably heard it 100 times before, but I’ll say it again: Nature is brutal. There’s never a dull moment out in the wild, and creatures – even those that fly – always have to keep their heads on a swivel. It’s eat or be eaten out there.
This seagull learned that the hard way.
When it comes to hunting, one of the most gifted predatory birds is the hawk. There aren’t many living beings in the Animal Kingdom that can rival the eyesight and hunting abilities of the sharp-taloned bird. I’ve already mentioned an animal-based saying in this story, and I’m about to bring up another, so please forgive me.
“Eyes like a hawk” wasn’t just made up out of nowhere. Whenever all of the common sayings were being created (and I’m not sure when that was), one was needed to explain something or someone with exceptional eyesight, and the hawk was the perfect example.
Hawks utilize their eyesight, which is eight times better than a human’s, to track down prey that’s below them. Now when I use the word “below,” that usually means what they’re going after is on the ground, but that’s not exactly the case with this video.
That being said, we don’t know how this hawk brought down the seagull that was just as big – if not bigger -than the bird that started the battle. The video picks up with a hawk (appears to be a Cooper’s Hawk, but hard to tell for sure) and a seagull having a street-level fight, and it’s possible that the hawk either a) knocked the seagull out of the sky or b) dive-bombed the gull as it walking near the road.
Either way, the hawk was winning the fight thanks to some brutal MMA-like moves, and the person that filmed it right out of their car could barely believe their eyes:
“When I drove down the road in Sharon, Pennsylvania, I originally thought someone hit a seagull with their car. I started recording thinking I would drive up and possibly try to get the seagull off the road. When I pulled up next to it, I realized that a hawk had gripped onto the seagulls beak and was holding it closed with its other claw on the seagulls head.
The seagull was beating the hawk so hard with its wing that, at times, it literally beat it into the road. At one point, I believe the seagull drew blood from the hawk on its right side up by the neck. This was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen, that wasn’t on National Geographic.”
The seagull was putting up one hell of a fight. After all, it was a fight for its life… that’s a situation where you kind of leave it all out on the field, you know? But it looked like the hawk was still very much in control, despite the seagull’s best efforts to fend off the bird of prey.
Take a look:
Almost makes you feel a little bad for the seagull, does it not?
I might be the only one thinking that way. When I checked in on the comments below the video, it looked like everyone was excited to see a seagull being taken down by the sharp talons of the hawk:
“Hawk knows its stuff, only weapon seagull has is its beak. Grab it by the head and is game over.”
“Some excellent jiu-jitsu from the hawk there.”
“I don’t feel bad for the gull. They attack and eat anything they can fit in their mouths.”
“Fighting right in the middle of the street.”
“Handled that seagull like an MMA fighter.”
