No Health-Care for a Beaten Bird

In nature unexpected events follow each other. Many times observing nature is possible only, when you manage to forget observing yourself. Patience is the number one gift of a nature observer.

Guillemots seem to be a bird-world equivalent to people from India. The huge density of breeding colonies forces the birds to give an impression of compliant sitting next to each other, but real life in the colonies is often unlike the impression. Fights do occur. Fighting starts with slight pecking and sometimes develops into a serious attempt of murder. Most serious matches are solved in the air and finally end up into the ocean, where the weaker party is trying to escape by diving, flying, swimming and splashing from the murderous rage of the strong.

Sometimes Brünnich’s guillemots are bleeding after fighting, but I have never before seen any serious damage due to these fights. When counting birds in vicinity of tens of thousands of guillemots, probability of seeing rare occasions is higher. This combatant lost his fight and came to look for refuge from us, while swarming glaucous gulls were waiting to attack the beaten bird. There was not much we could do, except for taking photos. Finally we had to leave and the bird ended up as a meal for the hungry glaucous gulls. To live is to die.