All of a sudden, this gull,
went head first,
and grabbed the rabbit in its bill.
There was a huge kind of ruckus,
there was huge movement,
The gull was flapping up, flapping around.
The rabbit was kicking,
trying to run away.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
I’m Lizzie Daley,
I’m a wildlife biologist and broadcaster.
I was on Skomer Island to film a series,
and I was with a friend who was helping me film all the behaviour,
everything from seals and porpoises offshore,
to watching the wildlife on land,
such as the shorted owls,
you know, hunting and feeding, the puffins going back
and forth to their burrows.
And I remember I went to the island
to see if there was anything interesting going on.
So as I looked over this one section of cliffs, you know,
puffins coming in and out with sand eels in their mouths, going into their burrows,
flicking away as they do cleaning their burrows.
And in the the remnants of bluebells
and the sea campion, there was a few rabbits,
and there was also a few gulls as well.
As soon as a gull would come off the cliff,
it would send these puffins kind of in a huge swirl like a tornado
around the island is an incredible thing to see.
This gull was trying to steal the sand eel out
of this puffins mouth and they’d go tumbling through the air,
the puffin would be trying to make it back to the burrow,
with all that food in their mouth to feed to their chicks.
Out of the corner of my eye,
I noticed one great black back gull,
just standing, near a few burrows.
And behind the bluebells, there was a rabbit,
and the rabbit was just feeding,
as they do along this cliff.
I got my binoculars up and was just watching for a while,
when I started to notice this gull was getting closer
to this rabbit.
And this was going on for a few minutes,
not a lot else,
but this gull was inching closer and closer.
And I’ve known of this behaviour for a while,
and I know it’s been captured on video, but I’ve never seen this with my own eyes.
So all of a sudden, this gull went head first,
grabbed the rabbit in its bill
and
there was a huge kind of
ruckus,
there was huge movement,
the gull was flapping up,
flapping around,
the rabbit was kicking, trying to run away;
and it happened within seconds.
And before I knew it, this gull had this rabbit halfway down its throat.
It was kind of pushing this rabbit down its throat, whole,
and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing as this huge
bird was literally swallowing this rabbit whole.
Eventually,
everything calmed down,
and unfortunately, two little feet in the mouth of these of this gull turned
to, you know, just a gull, looking very, very full and very happy with himself.
As the gull is swallowing the rabbit whole,
it will kind of push the rabbit down
its esophagus and is a process known as esophageal peristalsis,
where it will essentially
push down this animal whole and it will sit in that crop, that huge
kind of bulging animal whole will sit there
and essentially suffocate to death.
Then the bird has a true stomach and a gizzard,
and this gizzard is really important for breaking down those bigger chunks
or harder to break down bits of the rabbit.
The European rabbit is not native to the UK.
they’ve spread all over the world and they’re very successful.
They’re actually native to the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa,
they then weren’t released on islands like Skomer Island
until the 13th century by the Normans.
The rabbits are the perfect prey
and they’re on the menu for lots of different predators.
They have a long breeding period between January and August,
they reach sexual maturity around 4-5 months.
As little as one out of ten of these rabbits
will survive to adulthood will make it through that first year.
Across the UK, rabbits are really important prey for lots of predators,
but on Skomer Island in particular, they’re really important
for managing the vegetation, keeping the vegetation nice and short
for a lot of the endemic floral species that can be found on Skomer,
so they have an important role to play.
one of the things you always see with rabbits
is they’re constantly alert,
and they never venture too far away from their burrows either.
So, you know, there’s any, any sign of danger,
they are always listening, are always looking out in their surroundings
and that they’re extremely quick and they can always go back to their burrows
if there’s something dangerous around them.
One of the characteristics of a prey species
is the fact that they have huge ears, which is really important for them
in terms of detecting predators.
So, they need to be able to have really good listening abilities,
and also their eyes on the side, the head, which is very typical of prey.
It gives them much better vision,
to be able to detect what’s in their surroundings
Gulls come belong to the family
Laridae, there are 60 different species of gull, and they have huge variety.
But you know, they can live anywhere from coastal habitats to inland habitats,
and they are ground nesting carnivores essentially,
and they’re very good at adapting to their environment.
And, you know, when you’re seeing the species in the air,
you know, it’s got a real presence and a real size
on the wing and also, you know, when you just see it
standing along the coastline, this is not just any other gull;
this is an impressive large species.
It’s also a very effective predator.
When we think of avian predators,
you don’t necessarily think of a gull, but they are really up there.
You know, they will eat anything, largely fish,
but they’ll eat crustaceans they’ll eat other birds, they’ll eat rabbits.
So they are really opportunistic feeders and they’re really agile hunters as well,
I myself have seen, you know, a great black bat gull eating a crab,
taking off its pincers and cleverly stripping the meat from a crab.
I’ve also seen them hunt manx shearwaters,
fantastic bird on Skomer Island.
And they actually carry the manx shearwaters
to freshwater ponds on the island,
to wash off the salt,
we think.
I’ve also seen them, you know,
trying to steal sand eels from the mouths of puffins as well.
So they will eat whatever they can get their bills on.
Whenever I’m in Pembrokeshire or, seeing Skomer, or visting Skomer today
you know, I’m brought back to that moment
of seeing this incredible but gruesome behaviour.
And I’ll always have an appreciation for the great black back gull.
A true predator.
But will always be reminded of
the gruesome death of that day on Skomer Island.
