For some reason I let my parents drag me out to California with them

[sniffnoy]

But I guess the alternative would be having to find food for myself for a week.

Unsurprisingly this has been almost entirely a waste of time[0] (and we're here for another 5 days!), but I will of course refrain from ranting about the inanity of the whole thing and the annoyance of my family, and stick to what's actually worth writing down. Namely:

1. I saw a bird trying to kill another! One was a seagull, the other was... some other sort of waterfowl. The seagull was trying to choke or drown the other. But what was really crazy was that it really seemed to be trying to kill the other one - the other bird tried to fly away, but the seagull wouldn't let it, it attacked it again! I thought animals generally didn't waste energy on that sort of thing - that's what submission and dominance signals are for, no? I mean these guys weren't the same species, and I have no idea how close, but he was trying to fly away. Maybe the second bird had trespassed repeatedly (can they recognize each other?), or maybe the seagull was just really, really agressive. Certainly seagulls don't eat other birds... it was kind of scary. This went on for a while, and they went under a pier so I don't know how it ended.

...actually I think that's all for now.

-Harry

[0]Not to mention money. That would be an even worse rant...

Comments

[grenadier32.livejournal.com]

Maybe it was a territorial thing? One didn't understand the other species' territorial habits and ended up doing something the other didn't consider acceptable?

Or maybe the seagull was hungry. They'll eat anything.

[sake-na-na-na.livejournal.com]

I don't think seagulls follow typical animal behavior anymore. Maybe the other bird tried to take some food?