Was at Myrtle beach recently when I saw something i’ve never seen before.
I was walking past a bunch of seagulls on the shore when I saw one just start splashing in place. Basically looked like a little kid playing/dancing in a puddle. Was super cute/funny. It would do this for a few seconds then stop and dip it’s beak in the water.
It looked like it was purposely stirring up the sand under the water and eating whatever popped up.
I stuck around for a while (to see if this was common behaviour) but even though the flock was fairly large only a few individuals were doing this. (One of them looked like a pro with 2 others doing it a bit more clumsily. The rest of the flock just sort of stood around doing sea-gully things).
Is this something common? Specific to a particular type of seagull? Any info would be good as I got pretty curious about them.
I know next to nothing about birds in general and to be honest, I tend to stick most seabirds under the heading “seagull” if they look even remotely like one, but I’ve seen seagulls all over the world and never seen this before.
It’s a fairly common feeding technique in some gulls and shorebirds like plovers. As you surmise, they stir up mud or sand in shallow water with their feet to feed on whatever is exposed.
Here in southern california there are little tiny crabs that live in the sand near the waters edge. So maybe they are scrounging those up and eating them.
That is extremely cool. I’d never seen them do that before. Very funny to look at. Cheers.
Are you sure it was eating something? What you’re describing to me sounds like a bird bath. I’ve witnessed seagulls taking a bath in the ocean at the water’s edge many times. They sit in the shallow water and splash madly for a few moments, sometimes for a half hour or more. They stretch their wings. They dip their faces. Here’s a vid of it in youtube.. There’s an area of the beach near me where tons of gulls gather around the same time in late afternoon and take a bath together. I love watching them.
Here’s a video of Laughing Gulls feeding by foot-stirring. Here’s another"dancing gull." It’s obviously quite different behavior than bathing, since they don’t immerse the body.
Snowy Egrets do it too.