Herring Gulls feeding on cockles.

 

An interesting backdrop, in actual fact the yellow is the wall of a nearby building.  This Herring Gull has picked up this Cockle in the surf and is flying to the adjacent carpark where it will drop it to smash it open to get at the contents.

 

The cockle or Saltwater Clam is a bivalve mollusc, common around the coasts of Great Britain. I have to confess to being quite impressed by the sight of the much maligned Herring Gull  feeding on them today.  I had travelled to Teignmouth with visiting family who don't see the sea that often though the weather today would have kept most other people indoors.... in fact it had......! There are always large flocks of gulls at Teignmouth and it can be good to practice  flight photography which I do from time to time when I visit.  There is a carpark right next to the beach and the Herring Gulls of all ages were picking up the Cockles from the surf and carrying them to the tarmac, flying high above and then dropping them deliberately. There they would break and allow the birds to feed on the rich protein inside. Quite how much of this behaviour is instinctive is hard to say, it seemed to me that if young birds were also doing it then they must have copied the behaviour from the adult birds. 

The birds start by searching the surf line for the shellfish that have been exposed by the surf.

Once they have found one they fly to the carpark and drop  it from a height  to smash the hard shell to expose the soft contents.

It's not always successful and sometimes they need to retrieve the shell to try again.

Once smashed they settle to eat the contents. Some birds cheat by stealing the food before the owner can retrieve the prize. This is called "Kleptoparasitic".