vignettes: growling gulls and bad-*** butterflies

8/9/2019 VIGNETTES: Growling Gulls and Bad-*** Butterflies

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Growling Gulls &

Bad-A** Butterflies



Growling Gulls

Shown above is the Great Black-backed Gull, Larus marinus, a very large gull thatbreeds on the European and North American coasts and islands of the North Atlantic.This is the largest of the gulls, much bigger than a Herring Gull and often described asthe King of Gulls. It is up to 30 inches long with a wingspan as great as 6 feet, many adult males weighing more than three pounds. Unlike most Larus gulls, GreatBlack-backs will hunt and kill any prey smaller than themselves. They can swallowpuffins or small wild ducks whole. When protecting a nest, they are formidable

Great Black-backed Gull. Bad-A** in the egg. This photo copied under terms of GNU Free Documentation License.



adversaries. Anyone approaching nestingblack-backs is messing with the businessend of the bull. Herring gulls are second interms of size, but defend their nests withmuch the same ferocity.

In the spring of 1986 I spent a few days atthe Shoals Marine Laboratory, a CornellUniversity teaching facility on AppledoreIsland in the Isles of Shoals, some twelvemiles off the New Hampshire coast. At thistime of year, gulls nest here in theirthousands, often directly on the footpaths.They even nest all over Star Island, where alarge church-affiliated hotel hosts many guests, and the gulls defend their nests soferociously that they frighten guests. I knowfrom personal experience that a hikearound Appledore Island at nesting time cantest the mettle of man or boy.

Anyone hoping to walk about on any island where gulls are nesting is welladvised to wear hooded foul-weather

A Great Black-backed Gull attacking an American Coot, probably going after food in the coot’s beak, though Great Black-backs

are also known to kill and eat coots. Photo copied under terms of GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2.



gear and carry a long stick.This you wave in a circleoverhead to discourage gullsfrom dive-bombing you withfeces, regurgitating half-

digested fish on you, or evenattacking and biting you.

Anyone venturing onto highplaces during nesting seasonrisks a nasty fall. I was dumbenough to find myself near theedge of a high cliff when Icame under attack by twoblack-backs that nipped mepainfully hard through my thick

clothing, while beating me black and blue with theirbig wings. I had all I could do to maintain my balanceand not fall from the cliff, but I did manage to strikeone of them with my stick, so they backed off andresorted to strafing passes. And believe me, thosegulls had mastered the art of projectile-vomiting. They scored some very smelly hits. Embarrassed (I hadbeen forewarned), I slipped unseen back to the laband cleaned myself up.

Herring gulls are intimidating enough, but to beattacked by two or more great black-backs is adaunting experience. As previously noted, they’re very large birds, with wing-spans of five to six feet andlarge, powerful beaks. Just the noise of their screaming cries is unnerving.

Some gull attacks in recent years have been severe. A child had his lip cut openas a sausage roll was ripped from his mouth by a diving gull. A woman was rushed tohospital with deep beak wounds to her head. A pet dog was pecked to death. An80-year-old man suffered a fatal heart attack after being mobbed by gulls.

Bad-A** Butterflies

Confrontational creatures come in all sizes. One day as I stood on the porch of theShoals Marine Laboratory’s main community building, watching swallows bring foodto their nestlings under the porch, I noticed that each passing swallow was confrontedby a small white butterfly, which would fly up and dart about each bird, then return toits perch atop a high bush. I asked the resident ornithologist whether this was

Photo via pricklysquirrel

Photo via The First Post



territorial behavior by the butterfly, and he said, "Oh yes, butterflies can be very territorial, and quite aggressive." Aggressive? How can any creature with no teeth orclaws be aggressive?

There’s much disagreement on this point, among professionals as well aslearned lay people, but it seems well-documented that some species of butterflies are

very territorial. And this territoriality applies not only to other butterflies but also tobirds many times their size. On a Monarch web site in New Zealand, a memberreported a mourning cloak butterfly chasing away small birds, and another told of amonarch driving off a large hawk circling overhead. A member of an American gardensite described a monarch repeatedly chasing off sparrows. Now any bird soon learnsthat Monarchs taste terrible. Maybe they smell as bad as they taste. Perhaps the birds

would rather fly away than snap at the pest. (I doubt the hawk knows this; its “retreat”may have been pure happenstance.)

Might we conclude from this that only bad-tasting butterflies attack birds? Wemight, but not so fast. Poisonous or bad-tasting butterflies (animals, for that matter)advertise their defenses with bright colors. Those small butterflies harassing swallowsat Shoals Marine Lab were plain white or sulphur (I see yellow only under idealconditions). And on the wooded edge of a hayfield in Essex, I saw a small white(yellowish?) butterfly chase a Savannah sparrow, moving quickly enough to dart aboutthe bird once or twice as it was flying away. (I find it remarkable that a butterfly smallenough to be eaten by a bird has the gumption to fly tight circles around it.)

I’ve spent many hours searching the Web for photos of such incidents, but noluck so far. That’s the beauty of electronic publishing. I can add them if I get them.

On 12 August 2003 I drove to White Beach in Manchester-by-the-Sea and parked at the western end. In so doing, I unknowingly dislodged a previous parker, a black butterfly

which flew challenging circles around the front of my car, even striking the windshield. When I got out of the car, it flew challenging circles around me, sometimes touchingmy face and hair. In time it settled back onto the ground, where it resumed itsinterrupted mission, apparently to lick up needed minerals. It tolerated me to comequite close. I find that small animals prefer me as low to the ground as possible, so Ihunkered down and got a good long look at it. It approached within inches of my outstretched hand, and at one point even walked between my feet. Quite the beauty it was, black overall with two parallel rows of blue-green spots near the trailing edgesof its wings, and a row of yellow spots along the trailing edges. Estimated wingspan,from memory, 3 inches. The wingtips have an arrangement of blue, green, yellow andred spots. I had never before seen this species. Every few seconds it slowly flappedits wings.

This would have made an ideal subject for my digital camera, but that was inthe car, and I was afraid the butterfly would leave if I went to get the camera. My 35-mm Nikon was around my neck, unfortunately with a telephoto lens, but I backed off and took a few shots. The butterfly was in the shade. I hoped to photograph it on asunny patch of ground, but every time it flew, it landed on a shady patch.

One shot turned out fairly well, and I show it below. If my description of colors



Unidentified species encountered at White Beach, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Mass.

doesn’t match the photograph, blame my tritanopia. After I had taken the last shot on the roll, the butterfly flew onto a sunny patch.

Wouldn’t you know. I went to get my digital camera, and sure enough, the butterfly disappeared.

I later examined hundreds of butterfly photographs on the Web, and two booksof butterfly photographs at a library, but found nothing even close. If you can identify this species, please e-mail me at [email protected]. I’ll give you credit.

http://oddsbodkins.posterous.com/

mailto:[email protected].

mailto:[email protected].

vignettes: growling gulls and bad-*** butterflies

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