Evening star., 1948-03-17
This and That
BIZ Charles E. Tracepell

A correspondent wants to know about the
gulls, what they were eating recently on the
Mall and, around the Monument
This morning, for the first time this year,
I have seen several hundred guls," he writes.
II have noticed them each spring over period
of about week, and thereafter never see them,
except in fight or along the river.
Also I have seen them in fields as far as
20 miles north of Baltimore at this time of
year. They apparently are feeding but why
not at any other time? There is no ice to keep
them from the river, SO that does not account
for their action"
Gulls at the first break in the weather feast
for a brief time on worms grubs and other
things brought to the surface.
Minipedes and centipedes are favorites.
Sometimes the ring billed gulls flock in
around the War College, and there consume
millipedes as they first emerge.
This taste for something new" is the bird
equivalent of eating spring salads among
humans
Gulls are beautiful birds.
Our city is fortunate to have them on the
Potomac.
But at times geese and others fly overhead.
Several Florida gallnules have been reported
here, from time to time.
One was seen in a local back yard.
Water birds have their own ways of life, much
different from the songbirds that come to a
home garden.
Long winged swimmers comprise the gulls
and terms.
OF the so species of gulls, few come far
inland.
If you want to tell gull from tern in
flight, look for the way the creature carries its
bill.
Gulls carry the bill on line with the body,
whereas the terms point the bill downward
Gulls on the river will float around, looking
for something to eat, dipping in their bills now
and then.
Terms do not do this, but hover in the air,
making a plunge as they please.
Gulls change head color during the year,
and this often makes them extremely difficult
of Identification, especially by person who
does not have lifelong acquaintance with
them.
Gulls have web feet. This makes them fine
swimmers. They are not particularly good
divers. If fish gets caught by them, it is
one that has come to the surface.
Gulls often fly far inland.
Classic examples are those Of the California
gulls, which in 1907 and 1903, came into Nevada
to help clean up the field mice.
Alfalfa attracted the mice.
The mice drew the gulls by the hundreds
While no estimate was made of the number
of rodents killed the farmers felt that the big
birds had rendered them real service
Another gull good deed is performed by the
Franklins gulls, which have come inland to
Wisconsin and the Dakotas.
There they have destroyed various insects
following the plowmen
The larval forms of the insects suited the
gulls from the ground up.
The most famous of gull deeds, of course
was that of California gulls that from 1S48 to
1850 destroyed many millions of black crickets
which, in virgin Utah, were running the new
crops of the hard-presSed settlers.
Today bronze monument to the gulls stands
in Salt Lake City, and their good deed is held
in grateful memory by grateful people.
Flocks of gulls often follow steamers and
feed upon the garbage thrown overheard
Experts believe that they do real service ir
helping to keep the seas clean.
Gulls are study in themselves. They range
from the little Kittiwake, sometimes called
| coddy- y-moddy to the ivory gull, whose scientific
| name contains the word "pagophila," which
| means ice-loving.
| Herring and ring-billed gulls are more famil.
| lar to people living along the middle and lowel
Atlantic Coast.