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Seagull - LR9A3101

Seagulls are fondly remembered in Utah for helping Mormon settlers deal with a plague of crickets. The seagull is now the state bird of Utah and a monument in Salt Lake City commemorates the event, known as the ‘Miracle of the Gulls’. Seagulls are very clever. They learn, remember and even pass on behaviours, such as stamping their feet in a group to imitate rainfall and trick earthworms to come to the surface. Seagulls’ intelligence is clearly demonstrated by a range of different feeding behaviours, such as dropping hard-shelled molluscs onto rocks so that they break open so they can eat them, and following ploughs in fields where they know upturned grubs and other food sources will be plentiful.

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Uploaded on November 21, 2020
Taken on December 31, 2015