What Do Seagulls Eat? How Do They Obtain Their Food

Seagulls belong to the family Laridae under the genus Larus.

Seagulls have grey or white plumage with black markings on their wings or head. Gulls are stout sea birds with long bills and webbed feet.

Species of gulls reside in coastal areas or inland and rarely venture far from the sea. Gulls live in colonies where the nests are densely packed.

These birds are boisterous; they are known for harsh wailing or squawk calls. Can you imagine how loud a flock of seagulls sounds can be?

These sea birds are highly friendly, intelligent, resourceful, and exhibit a well-developed social structure with a complex mode of communication. They nest in densely packed colonies near the sea coast.

A female bird lays two to three speckled eggs in the vegetables decompose and grass during the breeding season. Seagulls species vary in size, small to large, where the small gull weighs around 119.068g (4.2 oz), and the large gull weighs up to 1723.65g (4 lb)—these gulls' growth range from 11.5-30 in(29.21cm-76.2cm).

There are nearly 54 gull species around the world. Gulls are known as Pirates of the sea for their mobbing behavior; these aggressive birds harass and attack their predators and intruders near their colonies.

Herring gulls are clever birds, as they use bread pieces as bait to catch goldfish. How cool is that? These birds are considered pests in a few parts of the world because they are noisy, mugging humans for food, destroying properties, and damaging building structures.

If you enjoyed learning about what seagulls eat? Please check our website to find interesting, fun facts on what do robins eat? And what do peacocks eat? Here on Kidadl.

What do seagulls eat in the city?

Gulls are not fussy feeders; they eat everything on their way, including trash/garbage. Their primary food source consists of marine fishes, freshwater invertebrates, both alive and dead.

They also feed on small terrestrial mammals, arthropods, and invertebrates like carrion, eggs, rodents, earthworms, insects, amphibians, reptiles, fruits, and seeds. They mainly rely on marine waters to obtain food. However, they constantly search for food along the shoreline or near urban habitat, whichever places have easy access to food.

There is an increase in the seagull population, and the food available near the coast has been affected due to overfishing by humans. Gull species started to socialize with humans and slowly moved close to the human habitat to nest in urban areas.

Other compelling reasons for gulls to leave marine grounds and bodies of water are global warming, where the water levels are rising, and fishes are forced to stay in deep water for plankton.

And deep water is always a sore spot for gulls as they are weak in maneuvering in deep water.

Hence gulls from the coast beach started to plunder into the cities. These gulls that moved to cities initially depended on human refuse/garbage and later started to peck food from humans.

Seagulls are good observers and act immediately. For example, they watch raindrops hitting the ground, and seagulls start hitting the ground with their feet to imitate rain.

So, when these gulls see humans eating food, they try to imitate eating human foods. Do you know seagulls love to eat grapes and munch on chips? Yes, grapes and chips are gull bird favorite snacks.

Seagulls moving near human habitats have a negative impact. They tend to be more bold and cranky.

The drastic change in diet is stressful for them, and it even affects breeding. Availability of easy food and over fructose diet(sweet food) can take a toll on their health. Gulls living in urban areas have equally harmful effects on humans as they can transmit E.coli, avian influenza, or bird flu.

What do seagulls eat inland?

In the wild, life is always challenging. Animals are exposed to many threats such as predators, human invaders, pollution, and global warming. Due to extreme conditions, many animals fail to live through their life span.

So, animals started living in groups to beat conditions by foraging, hunting, and protecting each other. Searching or foraging is an essential survival skill. In seagulls, similar obstacles like overfishing and rising sea level are the leading causes of moving into urban land.

Seagulls mainly depend on fish as their primary diet. They feed on small fishes, mollusks (clams), insects, earthworms, mammals meat like rodents, small amphibians like frogs, reptiles (small non-poisonous snakes).

And they also eat a healthy plant-based diet such as fruits and seeds found along the beach or coast. They steal food from other birds and attack animals exhibiting their predatory skills.

If there is limited availability or no food source during the breeding season, they feed on their own eggs. Seagulls cannot restrain themselves from becoming scavengers and cannibals (feed on their own kind) if there is no food around them.

Gulls snatch items from both ground and water, and they can plunge-dive to hunt and catch prey. Smaller species are more maneuverable than big birds, and they can hover-dip fish from the air.

Many gulls swim with foot paddles in tight protective circles. Sometimes, gulls just leisurely sit on the water surface to catch fish that reach the water's surface. They even walk along the beach to feed on drifted marine invertebrates that belong to mollusks (e.g., squids, clams, oysters, mussels).

This food is mainly obtained by searching the ground near hard rock surfaces among sand or rocks. When there is no marine food source, gulls tend to feed on seaweed that floats on water.

Seaweed consists of many valuable minerals but lacks protein and fat, which are more important. Many marine birds, such as gulls, albatrosses, pelicans, and birds related to marine ducks, have built-in filters to separate the saltwater they consume from their food (squids and crabs can be very salty as sea waters).

These birds have salt gland ducts near their eyeballs to expel the excess salt. These birds drink seawater or take in water along the prey and eat.

What do baby seagulls eat?

Seagulls pair for life and are colonial breeders; their most suitable breeding season began from early February to the end of July. Gulls display fidelity most of the time as most gulls return to the exact location and same colony to breed.

Colony's size varies from a few 100 to 1000s of pairs. Sea-cliff, dunes, islands, islands on the marine coast and other restricted locations are the ideal nesting sites in the wild.

Males are very terrestrial; they are possessive, and they defend their territories with aerial combat and win arguments through shrieking calls. Large seagull species attain sexual maturity at four years of age and live up to their 20s.

Adult gulls gather to mate in winter, and usually, the pairs start building the nest with twigs and grasses. The parents bond over nesting and 30 days incubation period; the average clutch size is two to four eggs.

Seagull babies require high protein food, fat for the muscle to build, and minerals to grow. High proportions of small mammals' meat give them better body conditions.

Gulls feed their babies only a few times a day, so they look alert most of the time.

To provide proper healthy nourishment, the adults feed young chicks with more marine food, consisting of anthropogenic refuse/garbage and earthworm, seeds, and fruits from grounds. In the wild, the young chicks are cared for by their parents and fed until young chicks are five to six weeks old and fly for the first time.

Do seagulls eat other birds?

Seagulls are tough birds with powerful survival instincts. Every animal belongs to a single category, such as plant-eating animals, meat-eating animals, or both.

But do you know seagulls are highly adaptable, that they would eat anything based on the availability of food sources? Gulls do not follow a particular pattern of eating habits. They are omnivorous, kleptoparasites (stealing food from other animals), and at times even show signs of cannibalism depending on food scarcity in seasons.

Gulls have sometimes been found snatching and feeding on small dogs (Chihuahua), pigeons, rabbits, starlings, and the flesh of dead animals.

Seagulls have limited skills to dive in deep waters, and human hunters drive them from fishing areas. Thus, seagulls are compelled to become opportunist scavengers. Experts believe that seagulls struggle to find enough food to eat due to challenging weather conditions, human invaders, and attacks by predators. These factors have compelled seagulls to turn into scavengers and cannibalism.

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly facts for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for what do seagulls eat? Then why not take a look at what do koi eat or seagull facts?