Feathers flying in a fight - birds gone bad

[Derek Smith]

I’ve just seen a fight, it’s the only word, between a gull and a crow. They were on the ground and attacking one-another, with the crow in the ascendant. It went on for as long as it took my wife and me to walk 100m towards them.

The gull tried to take off but the crow jumped in and pecked at its body and then neck. As we approached they stopped fighting as they seemed nervous of us. The crow flew away first, but the gull sort of tested a wing before flying away, although social distancing was maintained. It got to about 15 feet and the crow dived on it, at some speed, and they flew over back gardens until out of sight.

I’ve seen a red kite mobbed by crows, but not seen anything quite like that before. The crow in particular was stabbing at the gull with its beak around the head, neck and leading edge of the offside wing. The gull’s massive beak seemed too clumsy to get an advantage.

My wife was of the opinion that one had got out the wrong side of the nest that morning, while I thought one had accused the other of looking at his bird.

Is this common, especially on the ground?

[Roofless Toothless]

I watched a crow drive a fox out of a field once. It had made the mistake of venturing into the crow's territory under its favourite vantage point in a tree.

[mike74]

The other day I saw a solitary crow mobbing a pair of Buzzards and causing them to fly away, crows are fearsome little buggers.

[SeeFive]

For pure violence, you have to see a cormorant wrestling a sizeable eel.

We had a bit of a fight going off at the bottom of the garden, and for quite some time it was difficult to tell who was going to win. The eel wrapped around the cormorant’s neck and all sorts of flapping, biting and splashing and dragging under the water etc.

The cormorant won in the end but it seemed more like an attrition victory as it went on for so long.

[mike74]

I once heard a commotion at the bottom of the garden when sat out on a sunny day, on investigation it was a group of sparrows attacking a grounded and cornered bat.