GULLPED DOWN: a short-film on Skokholm's rabbit-eating gulls
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- čas přidán 16. 08. 2019
- A natural history short-film on the surprising rabbit-eating behaviour of Great black backed gulls, in Skokholm Island (Pembrokeshire, Wales). ©Irene Mendez Cruz
Please support the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales to help preserve this magical island!
www.welshwildlife.org/support...
I've seen gulls eating a lot of things I didn't realize until recently. I thought it was all fish and stuff people threw off ferries. They're actually kind of scary if you're a smaller animal.
Pelicans are quite bad aswell.. they will literally eat anything if they can swallow it. Saw a video of one trying to eat a child 🤣
@@mccari09 hi
Gulls will eat ANYTHING that will fit down their gullets. They're actually quite effective predators, not least because a lot of the prey animals don't really read them as predators until it is far too late.
Jeez, that bird gulped down a rabbit that didn't look all that small in relation to him. I wouldn't have thought he could do that.
That’s Big Fred, he won the National Rabbit Gulping Contest two years in a row...119 rabbits in 15 minutes...go Fred!
Gulls eat about any living thing they can overpower🤔💫✨
and hot chips
Sky rats
i once seen a seagull on rottnest island fly off with a 1/4 chicken from this girls chicken treat box while the other gulls flew underneath teh chicken hanging from its feet peckin at the chicken
Thank you for acknowledging GBBG's as apex predators in this environment. Something needs to be said not just about them gulping, but that GBBG's have a VERY advanced digestive system, allowing them to digest whole, live prey. Thank you for posting this video.
The music is too cheerful for this video.
Well it’s life lol
We can be cheerful that both rabbits and gulls thrive on this island paradise. The video and all sound work perfectly together. Refreshing!
I don't know. I think the seagull felt pretty happy about the situation.
@@ChrisShute62 Thank you! Also, it is worth remembering that the gulls also have chicks to feed! I need to go back to the island and film that side of the story...
it isn't... most of these types of music are used for these types of documentaries... that's to make it a little less sad to watch for 'some special' audience members
This film is wonderfully captured! The shot of the puffin is beautiful, and the ground-level views of the wildlife really bring the video to life. Love to see more of your wildlife films!
It's hard to appreciate, but gulls are one of the very few large birds capable of stationary flight.
I think that's just headwind.
If it's a bird that soars (ie. eagles, vultures, hawks, etc), it can fly in place as long as it's oriented into the direction of some decent headwind.
They always face into the wind too
Ok wtf? They aren’t hummingbirds. That’s called gliding
Seagulls are the sea version of urban pigeons.
What exactly do I need to appreciate about that?
Gulls the size of turkeys, they sometimes show up in my city and I've always wondered if they ate all the missing cats...
They unfortunately took a chihuahua last year in Devon. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-49070562
Gulls taking on cats are too risky.. hawks and eagles can manage a cat but not a full
@@keemjohnson8863 gulls will try to eat anything that moves
Herry Bells anything they can swallow is fair game. They are as unfussy as any species there is. Demands plaudits. Maybe humans should follow suit...
@Jamie Koering 🤣
When I was a schoolboy we spent a week on this island. In the morning we collected eggs from the gulls' nests along the cliffs. There was a raven with a split tongue that could talk. I lay down in an empty grass field and in minutes it was full of rabbits, some even hopping on my chest. There was an estimated 40,000 of them on half-a-square mile when I was there! The lighthouse keepers shot them for food with an air rifle. I've always remembered the fact that Skokholm rabbits were immune to myxomatosis, a terrible, man-made rabbit disease, because they share the same burrows and fleas as the birds there which killed the disease-carrying fleas. The Greater Black-backed Gulls also attacked and ate the poor shearwaters coming back to their nests in their burrows. Amazing memories from over 50 years ago. I just went to a page that offers stays on the island -- I just might add that to my bucket list if I can ever get back to the UK!
Great black-backed gulls, as they are called, are BIG BIRDS, the largest member of the gull family. They have a five foot wingspan and dark wings that give them a striking look, esp in contrast to the smaller and much more plentiful ring bill gulls. I see a few black-backeds wintering along the Hudson River north of NYC; when the weather gets warm they're gone. They're very shy around humans, usually perched on a piling at a distance. As far as gulls go, they have the nickname "king of the Atlantic" because of their size and handsome dark wings.
@@halibut1249 Thanks for the correction. Either I was repeating what I remembered from youth, or got it wrong because the lesser black-backed gull suggests a greater should exist! Out of interest here's a dictionary entry: "great black-backed gull (redirected from Greater Black-backed Gull)" I am not alone. :0) Cheers.
Do it. It is still as magical as ever!
@@lonebarn Thanks John. I've still got three sisters in England so it might happen some day, especially since I just became a senior.
@paul . That was cool story. That must have been a great experience.
I live in pembrokshire and I can clarify that the gulls are huge their twice the size of my dachshund
You should buy it a spiked collar so the gulls can't swallow it ! 😨
Probably because they gorge on rabbits!
Well, I have heard rumors of a neapolitan mastiff swallow by gbb gull 🤣
I live in Westerfordhamdevonshire and I have observed this heathen display of character.
@@cappystrano1 Good lord your town has a long name. The heathen gulls here eat French fries from fast food parking lots. Cheers from Chicago!
Good job Irene!!!!
Very nice little piece of information about a place I was not familiar with. Also, I wasn't aware of those beautiful, big gulls. Nice piece Irene! Keep up the good work! 👍
Thank you so much! I will try :) 👍
I want to see what these gulls look like in a few thousand years. Some giant predatory hawklike seagull.
With rabbit ears
The world doesn't less that long dude .
Because of climate change, they will probably evolve to be larger omnivorous species. Being a specialized predator is a risky strategy in the future. The animals that thrive nowadays are all omniovorous. But a larger size would probably help them navigate longer distances in search of food since it will become scarcer
They already exist. Look up Jaegers and Skuas. Same family as gulls... Laridae.
Legend has it that some of these gulls have grown up to be albatrosses.☝️👋😎
Rabbits are food for everything,, they have a rough life.
M. M. Ducklings have it even worse
They have a short life.
That's why they reproduce so much in large numbers
As a super successful prey species, they are literally made to be expendable.
It's a hard fact the rabbits have a rough life, but it's easily digestible!
Amazing Footage, I've never seen a Seagull swallow a rabbit whole like that before until now!
Wow, that Gul literally gulped down a whole rabbit. After a meal like that, he could paint your brand spanking new Toyota with a delightful mix of a bird master piece from the sky, on the first day of ownership.
Wtf bro 🤣🤣🤣 a fucking picaso.
HAHAHA!
2:25 Me, 5 seconds after I get my pizza home.
For sure! Same
😂
A delicious meal is there reward
Which quite alarmingly they can swallow hole
I just can't stop laughing at the suspicious way seagulls walk
They have suspicious minds .
Keep your eyes peeled and your chips fucking covered!
@@Brecconable lmao oh god I want that on a t-shirt.
Great video work!!!
Rabbits really are at the bottom of the foodchain they get eaten by everything.
I know... my hamster took one down last week
They are tasty 😋
Costeño Salao chlorophyll, more like bore-ophyll
Bugs Bunny would kill them
@@mscarolynnigro very good. Very clever. ;)
2:32 When you're greedy and lament the loss of even a single crumb, lol
Ok, so the rabbits now wanting to help the gull in Watership Down is making a lot more sense
*not
That's one thicc book. Do we have a reader on our hands? Or did you listen to this novel by Adams?
TAR ICO - read the book, I have a mini library. At last count, I literally had over 1,000 books
@@tarico4436
Ther are two cartoon version of the book, one I believe is on netflix from 2018 and the other from 1978 that you can watch on youtube for free.
Amitai Medan - there’s also an animated series of the book
Nice composing,,,,love it!
“A delicious meal”
Looks like the only thing that they’re tasting is wet fur
Nature is both beautiful & savage at the same time.
What do Rabbits taste like Mr. Seagull ? -
" F**K knows ? I just just Swallow em Whole "
Some very good footage there, good camera work too
Surprised there isn't an RSPCR! Rabbits certainly need an org like this to protect them!
Wow life is soo beautiful definitely
Wonderful film. It's obvious that you have skills on the professional level.
Why no other films? 🎥 📺🎙
These gulls are regular visitors to our garden. They are huge and their plumage is very beautiful.
That seems unlikely, since they go nowhere near human-inhabited areas. You've more likely got Lesser Black-backed Gulls. Similar but way smaller and more abundant.
Seemed like all those rabbits where already dead before they got eaten
Could be playing dead out of fear, but who really knows 😨
imagine swallowing a whole ass rabbit.
That last one looked fresh
@@chateaupig826 bird probably shook it and it's neck broke. I hope it was dead being swallowed 🤪
Omae wa a mou shindeiru!
@@EveleeR Yes that is exactly what happened. That particular gull spent its days stalking the baby rabbits and once they came out of their burrows he would swoop one - peck it to death with its sharp beak, then swallow it. :/
Rabbit, "you don't even have a razor-sharp beak, or an intimidating scream. i am getting eaten whole by something with webbed feet instead of talons. wtf"
Babble all you want about graphic imagery and stuff. If you eat burgers, you are the most vicious predator of them all.
Anyways, just wanted to say that after learning what they can eat (sorry GULP) I absolutely love them, especially those that have acquired a taste for pigeons. Seeing a seagull that eats a pigeon. Man, what a therapeutic view.
I guess the seagull from family guy that suggested hunting for their own meal for the last laugh
Great place loved going there for my weeks stay
that last bit was delicious !!!
Since no one else has done it!
2:09
Ahem: MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE!
Thanks
@@anib8863 Welcome.
Well done!!! LOL
Impressionante!
"Waiter? There's a hair in my rabbit... Well, actually, the whole fur, but... c'mon!”
I'm now going down the "what else do gulls eat" rabbit hole.
Looks like those rabbits did too.
Impresionante.
Little bunny looked so cute to Sea Gull he gobble him whole...😍
Wow !
🤯Well, dang! 😎💯👍🏻❤️🙏🧼
Thanks so much!
Rabbits do all that good for nature and this is the thanks!!
I love this video. Very nice work! How do the gulls get along with the puffins (and humans)? Is it possible to train the gulls to bring us food?
Rob Loblaw they actually also eat the puffins!
"is it possible to train the gulls to bring us food?"
I am now imagining one of these gulls vomiting a half digested whole rabbit into your waiting mouth. Thanks for that.
Garddem. Even the way THE song ends
I love Welsh Rarebit.
Irene Mendez Cruz is super cute 💗☺️
Rabbit's last word: What's up doc?
Those Gulls are amazing, I usually start gagging if I get just one hair down the back of my throat! Slurp, slurp!!!
So...what King Arthur and his Monty Python troupe of knights needed was a Black Backed Gull, and not a Holy Hand Grenade ?
"Get in my BELLY!" 😂
Let's face it, bunnies are meant to be eaten. The only defense they have is their erratic hopping maneuvers, which isn't that effective from all appearances. I've seen so many different predators prey on these creatures it would probably be easier to list which species don't. Poor things, designed to be sustenance for the upper tiers of the food chain...
That is why they reproduce so fast.
And they breed explosively. It's almost like they were designed to be a meat source.
it's an evolutionary trade. They trade survival for reproduction
Well, some bunnies are lucky to be adopted as pets, like the ones I have!
@@gusbakker good for your bunny I guess the other ones are not so lucky.
I didn’t see the hyphen in the title at first. Thought I was going to see a rabbit eat a seagull.
GBBG are pidgeon exterminators in New Zealand. I had one drop a half dead one on my windscreen as it battled to escape the collision.
I get the impression that (compared with their size) seagulls are about the ultimate bulk-swallower.
I read this as gull-eating rabbits and was expecting a very different film 😂
I was curious to see how they actually captured the rabbits with webbed feet and all
Even tiny weasels make breakfast out of bunnies. I doubt the gull considers this a close fight
I was eating at a seaside pizza joint one time with some buddies. Outdoor seating only. You had to guard your food from the seagulls and some were very aggressive. This one seagull though was more passive and would just hangout with the diners looking for handouts. My buddy wadded up some Copenhagen snuff in some pizza crust and fed it to it. About 10 minutes later the bird wasn't looking too good and when they brought out another group of diner's pizza the bird hopped up on their table and projectile vomited all over them and their pizza.
Cool
Reminds me of Watershed Down
So who is killing all the rabbits since none were shown actually being hunted?
I think the gulls peck them to death.
One of the gulls is a serial killer, and the rest of the gulls are just cleaning up his mess.
Jessica
Staged as most documentaries. Is like mantis eating "insert big animal". You get to see the mantis attack the animal. All the sudden a cut and the animal already died and the mantis is munching on it.
@@CalaTec I remember a documentary, where they hold an alive gecko against a mantis with a green glove to let him being eaten: czcams.com/video/VidW5AcZ8RE/video.html
Wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it.
A gull really gulped down a rabbit, wasnt dissapointed
Oh, those rabbits
Scotland has got to be the most beautiful place on earth.
Possibly. But this is Wales.
@@CarolineLeinster Thanks for correcting me. I thought Skokholm was in Scotland.
@@gautamv952 No worries. The name looks Scandinavian to most native English speakers. Pembrokeshire is the south-west corner of Wales.
2:28 either those rabbits are very small OR those guls are VERY big, they could use some of those guls in Australia, to help deal with their rabbit problem, though i doubt those guls would be gulping those rabbits down in one bite...wow!
Dang that camerawork is insane, may I ask what camera?
They need these gulls in Australia !
For rats ?
@@onlythetruth4039
For wabbits !
I love Seagulls, didn't know they have such deep throats though. Lol. Poor Rabbits, they're at the top of the food chain on every Predators List. The Predators on the ground and in the air.
Yep, not even the tinier critters spare them. They still have grass though. Friendly, completely harmless grass
I imagine this is how a T-Rex would eat
i have never heard of rabbit-eating gulls, damn!
This made me want a yummy bunny in my tummy as well
A bear and a rabbit are taking a crap in the woods. The bear turns to the rabbit and asks do you have any problems with crap sticking to your fur and the rabbit says no...
So the bear wipes his butt with the rabbit
I need some of those gulls in my neighborhood. We have a very healthy rabbit population.
Woah
Happy music doesnt quite match the gruesome imagery, unless you're a gull I guess.
I hope it comes out WHOLE also.
🤣😂
Damn, that’s crazy
Holy crap, whole yep whole rabbit.
My god, how do these guys move afterwards with a full rabbit in their stomach
Now that's what you call a dive in for fast food.
2:25 When you finally go all the way down the rabbit whole!
Those gulls would have to be on the top ten list of gluttons
Who else misread the title as 'Stockholm' first?
Thanks to the god of birds that gulls aren't as big as an ostrich .
How the he'll they digest bones?
Gulls stole the money filled wallet of my brother in law off the table he was sat at, took it on top of the buildings never to be seen again...i like gulls:)
Take that your not too fond of the brother-in-law tho, eh?...lol
@@egreenie3819 nope, he's a prat, well done gulls i thought:)
@@Hoodoo123 Lmao😅
That’s a good excuse . 😏
@@Hoodoo123 That is hilarious!
Its watership down all over again!
2:30 when you do the dishes without being asked and she rewards you.
Damn nature
You scary
How long before the gull could take off after that though?
That must be right on the limit of what that bird could swallow.
Damn gulled down whole.
I was really expecting to see Swedish seagulls devour rabbits in the capital city of Sweden. When he said Britain, I had to read the title again.
Man when that segull unloads it is going to be like someone dropped a can of paint.
Herons are also hunting and eating rabbits (actually way more frequently than gulls)