Remember how your mom would get you to finish your dinner by pretending your spaghetti was a worm? Perhaps the young Glaucous-winged Gull above is thinking that the worm is just like spaghetti!
The intertidal beaches of Puget Sound offer a wide variety of food for ambitious gulls.
"Omnivores, Glaucous-winged Gulls will eat most anything, but
items most often ingested include fish and other marine creatures, small birds,
eggs, small mammals, invertebrates from waterlogged fields, and refuse from
dumps, sewage ponds, trash cans, and parking lots."
This particular gull has found a lugworm. Lugworms are very abundant in Puget Sound marine mudflats. It is estimated that there may be as many as 50/sq meter. The lugworm can be as long as 18 inches. Lugworms are eaten by fish, crab and birds. Surprisingly, a lugworm can live 5 - 6 years.
