This was one of those "you have to see it to believe it" happenings. I noticed a couple of sea gulls out on the marsh this morning - nothing unusual - but there was a lot of splashing going on around one of the birds. When I took a look through my binoculars, I realized the gull had hold of a duck which was flailing about. As I continued to watch, it seemed as if the gull was trying to hold the duck underwater to drown it. However, the duck eventually managed to escape the gull's clutches (the survivor was the duck in the centre of the bottom photo). It was a Great Black-backed Gull, the largest of our gulls, and the duck was a male Ring-neck, less than half the size of the gull. When I did a little research, it seems that great black-backs will hunt and kill any prey smaller than themselves.
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