LAUGHING GULLS ON ABACO: NOT SHARING THE JOKE?

Sandy Point always promises well for birding. There are plenty of ‘good’ birds to see there, depending on the time of year: tropicbirds, frigatebirds, ospreys, brown pelicans, white ibis, cattle egrets, other egrets and herons, kestrels, and a variety of shorebirds. And gulls. We encountered a pair of Laughing Gulls perched on a piling.

To begin with they were laughing merrily. Then they quietened down. Maybe one of them told a somewhat off-colour joke. In the sequence of photos below, you can see the left hand gull tensing and preparing to fly. Then it does – leaving his buddy all alone to contemplate the consequences of causing a sense of humour failure…

This is the sound of a pair of laughing gulls on the Marls objecting as we slowly poled through the mangroves towards them. Not laughing, but complaining…