Muggers - a photo on Flickriver

Muggers

            This is an avian crime in action.  Two Black-headed Gulls trying to "persuade" this Common Tern to drop the fish it is taking back to its own young.   The technical term for animals mugging other animals for food is kleptoparasitism.  Black-headed Gulls are simply opportunistic muggers whereas it is a way of life for Skuas (or Jaegers as you call them in America).  Their only source of food is to steal it  from other birds.

When birds swallow food it is initially stored in the crop, which sits above the gizzard (which grinds the food) and the intestines (which digests the food). Many birds store food in the crop while they fly back to their nests, then they disgorge the food to feed the chicks.  Terns leave themselves particularly vulnerable to kleptoparasitism by carrying their food on show.  This was just too tempting for these opportunistic thieves.  I took the photograph at St Aidans in West Yorkshire.

Taken on: May 13, 2018

Tags:

kleptoparasitism

Common

Sterna

hirundo

Black-headed

Gull

Chroicocephalus

ridibundus

West

Yorkshire

Tim Melling « less

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