What would stop a gull from flying and feeding? Three and a half foot of fishing line hooked through its mouth with a 5oz weight on the end is what. Left behind by a fisherman today or yesterday - the bait was still fresh.
Nigel from the Bird Observatory saw a juvenile Mediterranean Gull (Larus melanocephalus) in distress on the beach near the View Point today. He tried to catch it with a butterfly net but the bird dragged itself into the water too far out for Nigel to reach. I saw him just after his first attempt, he was hoping that the bird would come back into shore if he backed off.
Then he remembered a handy boat hook on a very long pole that he'd found washed up on the beach ages ago. It could be useful for hooking the fishing line tangle and pulling the bird back to shore. He didn't want to leave it out there as the weight on the fishing line was dragging the birds head down, if the bird got too tired it would drown. I was very glad to be able to help so we went and grabbed the boat hook and butterfly net and went off to find the bird.
The gull was on the shore again, Nigel approached with net in hand but the bird flew off, only able to fly a few feet above the ground because it was trailing the weight. We followed and Nigel tried again, again it flew off. Third time lucky? It flew as we approached but the dragging weight got caught in some thistles so Nigel quickly netted the bird. Success!
Now we could get a closer look we could see the fishing hook was through the gulls tongue, thankfully not down its throat. We took it back to the Bird Observatory so we could extract the hook and Nigel could measure and ring it. After a bit of fiddling Nigel got the hook out, the wound was minimal and didn't bleed. It looked like it had bled when the hook first went in because the bird had a small amount of blood on its face. Then the bird was measured: wing length 312 mm, weight 316.4g and ringed.
Then I took a few photos and we released the bird into my garden to give it a chance to get over its ordeal.
Less than an hour later it flew away.
