Don't Play with Your Food

Like the scratching of the tern posted yesterday, the behavior depicted here may be more common than you may think.  I have also seen a tern do this twice.  While in flight, I watched this tern - I believe it is a Caspian - drop the fish eleven different times and recatch it.  My guess is it was trying to get a fish that was at the upper limits of what it could swallow, in the best position to swallow it.  Still, to see it intentionally drop the fish, then overtake and reacquire it over and over again was amazing to watch.  The second time I saw the same action, the tern had caught a small flounder called a hogchoker, which would have also been difficult to swallow.

Learning to Fly from Scratch

I've seen this behavior twice; both times it was a tern.  The first time I thought it was random and never thought I would see it again.  After seeing it twice (this was the second time), I wonder if it something that occurs regularly but isn't noticed.  Terns do some other absolutely amazing things.  Maybe tomorrow I'll post something I saw one do a couple of years ago...

Unexpected Catch

After dropping the soft crab (see yesterday's post), the gull flew only a few yards before dropping down and picking up something else from the water's surface.  I'm pretty sure it was dead.  It hadn't flown far when it also dropped this.  After landing once more and retrieving it, the gull decided it really didn't want it and flew off without the rodent.

Now, that was a Meal

This gull picked up a softcrab in a shallow cove, but it started falling apart before it had flown very far.  The gull came back, but the crab had already sunk beyond reach by then.  It didn't fly but a few yards before it picked up another meal from the water's surface - which I'll post tomorrow.

Eagle Wars

The eagles and osprey were going at it hot and heavy yesterday morning on the Patuxent River.  I witnessed four separate confrontations.  In most cases, it is eagles trying to steal the catch from an osprey.  In the one pictured, however, it is the osprey that was so upset with the eagle that it was the agressor.  It is pretty amazing to see the eagles fly completely upside down with ease.

Holy Koi!

Did the osprey raid someones koi pond?  Why no, it caught it straight out of the river.  Good reason not to dump your kid's goldfish bowl in the river when they grow tired of them.  This was yesterday; today I saw another "gold" fish caught.

Riverdance

Seagulls can be so graceful, they make eating look like ballet.