Psychotic Gull

The gulls in Alaska are different from any gulls anywhere. I have seen them sit on the tops of spruce trees. Sitting there like eagles. But I have seen behavior in a gull that tops it all. This gull was vicious, mean and tough and a killer.

I was standing by the river watching a flock of common mergansers. All full grown adults just floating down the river enjoying their life. When out of the sky dropped a Glacous-wing Gull, right on top of one of the mergansers. The gull pushed the merganser under the water. The merganser dived and the gull let go. When the merganser came up the gull was upon him instantly and pushed it back into the water. The merganser dived and came up only to be pushed back under the water. Time and time again this happened. While the gull terrorized the poor merganser, a bear tuned in to the struggle and started following. Finally, the duck died. But the gull did not get his meal the bear did.
This did not stop the gull for even a moment as it went straight after another merganser and started the same process. The merganser moved all over trying to get away from the gull. The gull followed pushing the merganser under the water over and over again. The bear swam after both of them. After a few minutes the merganser lost its life. The gull lost another meal and the bear, well he lost a meal too as the dead duck sank.

The bear searched for the dead duck. The gull, being very determined, went after a third duck. Finally, the rest of the flock had enough of the psycho gull and fought back. Together the flock gave chase to the gull, who finally had to give up. But then he decided that maybe merganser wasn't what he was really hungry for. The psycho gull started fishing. The bear having had a little morsel and losing another moved on to other territory. After a few minutes I saw the gull swoop down and catch a salmon. Not a small salmon but one that he could not lift up out of the water. He dragged the fish, flapping his wings, and struggling with the weight. Across the river he went. He was determined not to give up the salmon. With an enormous amount of effort the gull got the salmon to the beach. He started to feast but the other gulls thought they should share in the catch. Psycho gull fought each one of them until they flew off to a safe distance and watched as the psycho gull had his full.