I saw this walking to work yesterday. A flock of seven or eight sea gulls was attacking what I at first thought was a bird, but later thought perhaps it was a bat, because of the way it flew. The sea gulls sort of took turns flying at it, and seemed to be trying to break its wings with their beaks.
Are they birds of prey? Do they eat mammals/small birds? I had never seen this before, and it was all going on at least thirty feet over my head. All I could do was watch in horrified fascination until I walked too far too see them. The outcome was fairly certain.
Also, I have heard that bats can carry rabies. If this indeed was a bat, can sea gulls also carry rabies?
They are not birds of prey, but they are omnivorous birds of opportunity.
We used to have gulls following our ship, waiting for fish to be churned up by the prop wash. Periodically, we would pick up tired goldfinches blown out from the Keewenaw Peninsula who dropped onto our deck for a rest. Pretty soon, we would no longer see finches, but we would find gull guano with small bird bones in it.
I’ve seen gulls attack baby turtles and frogs, so it wouldn’t surprise me if they took after a bat. Bats aren’t too aerobatic, so gulls could probably outmanuever them.
An aside: I did see a scene once up on Lake of the Woods when some starlings were mobbing a crow. One of the starlings wasn’t paying attention, and a hawk swooped in and grabbed it right in mid-air.
I am not sure about the fight, but rabies can be carried by all warm blooded animals. Birds are warm blooded so I gather they can get rabies and transmit the disease.
As a Discovery Channel junkie, I’ve seen the 80 odd shows where gulls sit on the outskirts of another bird’s nesting colony and periodically swoop in to peck at the unattended young and fly off with their carcass. It’s only nature I know but still it’s horrific and makes me want to puke whenever I see it.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they were trying to kill and eat the bat (if that’s what it was). Gulls commonly eat the eggs and chicks of other birds – and even other gulls.
Another problem with gulls is that they feed on refuse tips, and because so much of their food is rotten they can carry all manner of bacterial diseases. I would never eat gulls’ eggs because of the risk of salmonella.
Actually, bats are very aerobatic. More so than most birds, in fact. What they’re not is terribly fast, not do most bats you’ll find in North America or Europe normally fly during the day. Gulls have the advantage of speed and strength going for them, and are fairly aerobatic themselves, so the bat doesn’t stand much chance, especially against a mob.
Whether it was a bat or not, it may have had a nice piece of food that the gulls were trying to get at as well. I’ve seen many types of birds attack other birds for food. I saw a Discovery/TLC/Animal Planet/PBS show that showed a bunch of little birds attacking a single bigger bird, not to kill it, but just to get it to drop the food it was carrying in its beak. Once the larger bird dropped the food, the other birds caught it in mid-air and left.
Gulls will eat just about any damn thing, live or dead, animal, vegetable, or mineral, just as long as it looks like it might be food, and they can cram it down their throats.
IAAOrnithologist, and last week on an Ornithology listserv I belong to I saw an anecdote about a live gull that was found with what appeared to be a bizarre parasite sticking out of its side. It turned out to be an octopus, which the bird had swallowed alive, and which had managed to bite its way out of the birds stomach and through its side. Someone else followed up with two cases in which gulls had swallowed live rats, and the rats had managed to chew their way out. In one case the rat actually survived its ingestion, although of course the gull died.
If a bat were flying around during the day, it could be rabid. On the other hand, it might have just have been disturbed from its roost.
I have seen statements that “all warm-blooded animals” can get rabies, but I don’t think this is correct. AFAIK only mammals can get or transmit rabies. I have never heard of birds getting it. I handle live birds all the time, and am sure that rabies vaccination is not considered necessary. I do have rabies vaccination, because we do occasionally catch bats in our nets.
I, too was wondering why it was flying in daylight, although it was before 8 A.M. CST here in Minnesota, so the sun hadn’t been up too long.
The bat did not appear to have any food, and the gulls were very definitely making contact; biting it with their beaks. And it flew much more slowly than they did, so unless it was able to crawl into some space inaccesible to the gulls, it probably was eaten.
Maybe, but a common sparrow (or an unladen swallow) could easily fly circles around the ones I’ve seen here in Minnesota. Like you said, though, it could be because they are so slow. After all, they don’t need to be too fast to catch a june bug in mid-air.
Yeah, well, North American and European bats are optimized to hunt their primary prey, bugs, which are very manueverable, but, as you said, quite slow. Sparrows and such are pretty aerobatic, but they attack bugs in swoops and dives, substituting speed of approach for sheer manueverability. The most manueverable of birds, the hummingbirds, do put the bats to shame, but that’s the only exception I can think of at the moment.
My stepfather used to do reserach on bats, and we kept a Pallid Bat as a pet for a while. It would snatch mealworms from our fingers on the fly, or intercept them in mid-air if we flipped them into the air. Very cool.
Maybe it’s just semantics, but I can’t really see classifying bats as either highly maneuverable, much less aerobatic. You see, skin membranes just aren’t as aerodynamic as a feathered wing. I’ve seen sparrows grabbing moths out of the air (happens every time I mow the lawn). Swallows are made for grabbing airborne insects. Even sea gulls will catch things in mid-air (or right out of your hand), and they’re made for soaring…not swooping and grabbing.
My concept of aerobatic precludes bats because they bleed off too much speed any time they have to make a tight turn, and they don’t start off with that much speed to begin with. They don’t “pull the g’s” that a bird generally would.
It’s like playing tag with a five-year old. They can turn quickly, but they’re not quick nor maneuverable enough to get away.
Sure, bats can catch bugs, but I can catch bugs.
See what I mean?
(PS- I like bats. Anything that can eat that many mosquitos and deer flies is A-OK with me.)
Watch bats in flight sometime. They aren’t particularly aerodynamic (which is where I think you’re coming from), but are supremely aerobatic. Rather than thinking of playing tag with 5-year olds, think of playing tag with 9-year olds. You can still out-run them, and are stronger, and have longer arms, but if you try and cut a corner like they do, at speed, you’ll wind-up on your butt.
I’ve seen bats manuever though a room filled with criss-crossing wires, and nail the moth released on the far side, first try, everytime.
1 According to Bat Conservation International, you’re more likely to get bitten by a rabid cow than a rabid bat. Yes bats can and do get rabies, and it’s generally difficult to catch a bat for testing. The stereotyepe of blood-sucking, hair-seeking, super-rabid bats just refuses to die though.
Why is it everyone has a pet bat except me??? I always wanted a pet bat that came on command-and hung from my finger. Ohh, well.
“According to Bat Conservation International, you’re more likely to get bitten by a rabid cow than a rabid bat.”
What is BCI’s source for this interesting statement?
According to the CDC, there were about 1000 confirmed cases of rabid bats in 1999 but only about 100 confirmed cases of rabid cows in the same year. Does BCI claim that rabid cows go around biting humans ten times more than rabid bats do or that bats with rabies are more likely to be reported than cows with rabies? http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/rabies/Epidemiology/Epidemiology.htm#Wild%20Animals
If so, then the CDC’s listing of human rabies cases is interesting. From 1990 to 2000 there were 32 confirmed cases of rabies in humans in the U.S. Of these, two were caused by bats (the person was bitten by a bat that tested positive for rabies) and none by cows. In 24 cases, the exposure was unknown but of these, 22 were caused by strains associated with bats and 2 were caused by strains associated with dogs. Of course, the fact that a person is infected with a rabies virus strain that is associated with bats doesn’t mean that she was bitten by a bat. But it seems plausible that at least some of the 22 with “unknown” exposure were bitten by bats. http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/rabies/professional/Surveillance99/Table2-99.htm
So I wonder about the basis for the statement that DocCathode attributes to BCI.
Well one answer as to why you are very unlikely to get rabies from a bat is quite obvious - what percentage of people here have ever even seen a live bat? How ‘bout one in the wild? One close enough to touch? And out of that 1/100,000 - who here’s been bitten by one? Right; and had ya not grabbed it??? Now raise your hand if you were bit by a friend’s dog this summer - getting the picture?
Oh, and about bats’ aerobatics - if you’ve never seen them in real-life dogfights with moths you wouldn’t beleive it. No, I don’t mean watching footage of them; that’s slowed down so you can follow them. In around dusk I always mistake bats for sparrows and vice-versa; they move about the same. My last house was tall and had a balcony light that would illuminate a half-circle of ~40 feet. I’d watch bats catch bugs there and often couldn’t even follow them they were that quick; it would only take about a second for one to dart across the whole lighted area… “was that one??”
Our bat (Named “Pal”, for Pallid Bat. Original, huh?) was captured along with a number of Big- and Little-Brown Bats, which were mist-netted in Mazatlaan for a research project (all later released). Pal was quite docile, but wouldn’t come on command, nor dangle from your finger, save briefly. He was smart, as small mammels go, and adapted to hand feeding quite readily. He had a bad habit of crawling up your arm and onto your collar, sometimes even up to your head. We normally fed him in his cage, but would allow him out several times a week to excercise his fight muscles, where we’d close all door and stuff all vents (a 2" bat can escape through the damndest tiny gaps), then flip meal worms in the air for him. He very quickly learned the drill, and would circle the room, keeping his little head angled at the thrower, waiting for his chance. He rarely missed, and if you were slow in tossing the bug, he would, on occasion, grab the bug from your hand en passant. He would also take worms from your hand if you set him on a counter and held the worm for him. He’d sight in on it, scuttle to one side to confirm that you had a bug, then scuttle up and grab it.
We kept him for only one winter, releasing him the next spring, but we had fun in the mean-while, including winning several pet show awards for most unusual pet (He wasn’t the only strange pet we hand, just the strangest, by a narrow margin!).