Today’s “Caturday” video features a herring gull that has invented an ingenious way to be fed as many chips as she could possibly ever want. Instead of singing for her supper, this bird “dances” for her supper.
“Dancing”, as the narrator refers to it, is a fairly common behaviour amongst gulls. The birds stamp their feet rapidly upon the ground to bring worms to the surface, where the hungry birds can eat them. It is not clear exactly why stamping their feet on the ground has this effect upon worms (there are a lot of hypotheses that may explain this), but a variety of bird groups use this technique to help them land their next meal. So the narrator of the video actually didn’t teach this bird anything at all. In the case of this particular gull, foot stamping has proven to be a brilliant adaptation for training the narrator to give her a belly full of deep-fat fried chips.
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When she’s not out birding, GrrlScientist is very active on twitter @GrrlScientist
