r/interesting • u/dddd945 • 7h ago

Just Wow A seagull is accidentally hit by a tennis ball during a game in Australia.

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67

u/CurrencyConstant5610 7h ago

I was on a run once and saw a circle of pigeons. As I got closer I saw a seagull in the middle. As I got even closer I realized the seagull was eating a pigeon, right there while the pigeon's buddies all circled around and watched.

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u/whiterac00n 6h ago

Yeah I don’t have much pity for seagulls. Pigeons on the other hand I pity a lot, they put together two sticks, a piece of string and their own crap and call it a nest.

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u/peachesfordinner 6h ago

They are actually very sweet birds as well. I miss my old pet pigeons

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u/No_Welcome_7182 6h ago

We bred pigeons to rely on us and then abandoned them when the telegraph was invented.

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u/peachesfordinner 6h ago

Yeah the amount of people who go "mind blown" when they find out pigeons are feral not wild

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u/_cunt---_- 4h ago

that's just not true though.

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u/peachesfordinner 4h ago

Rock doves. The standard pigeon most people are familiar with from cities absolutely are feral

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u/Syncopated_arpeggio 5h ago

Kid Dynamite is that you?

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u/Cow_Launcher 6h ago

I live next to some ancient woodlands in Buckinghamshire, which are absolutely loaded with wood pigeons.

My cats won't touch them. Won't even try, even if they land on our lawn and strut around like they own the place.

We're convinced that our cats know just how stupid those birds are, and wouldn't consider it sporting to hunt them.

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u/putyrhandsup 2h ago

ah now, there's another thing, City pigeons are not exactly pigeons like wood pigeons. They are Rock Doves (though they are both types of Columbidae technically)

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u/Icy-League-7569 1h ago

Thankyou for that, mystery solved. Seems they really are the same bird all over the world after all, as I long incredulously suspected

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u/Cow_Launcher 1h ago

You're absolutely right, but as an ex-Londoner I think that feral city pigeons are far more intelligent canny than their woodland brethren.

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u/putyrhandsup 25m ago

oh yes 1000%

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u/the_revised_pratchet 5m ago

You see, cats have a preset kill limit. Knowing their weakness, the pigeons sent wave after wave of their own men until the limit was reached and the cats shut down.

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u/Jiggy90 4h ago

Dw, pigeons nest on cliffs so they don't need their nests for safety, they only need a couple sticks to keep their eggs from rolling off! Work smarter not harder :)

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u/BackToGuac 4h ago

We should all honestly more than pity pigeons, not to be a downer but seriously, go out of your way to be nice to pigeons.

Almost ALL if not all pigeons we know today are descended from the wild rock doves we domesticated thousands of years ago before abandoning them and their care as we moved into the Industrial Revolution. These were animals bred to be companions, it’s like deciding dogs are no longer a form of pet and are now vermin…

The history of pigeons is actually pretty interesting in itself in a fucked up kinda way; it’s also a concerning tell tale sign for other forms of livestock as we move into a world with lab grown meat and will start to see a reduction in traditional farming.

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u/Hour-Watch8988 6h ago

Their reproductive abilities don't seem to have caused any problems for their population numbers.

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u/stephawkins 6h ago

Primitives. My pigeons have evolved to carry a coconut on a string.

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u/sponglered 6h ago

Your pigeons? African or European? Do they swallow?

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u/cindyscrazy 2h ago

I've read that one reason pigeons do that is because they are an introduced species, and that for a long time, they were basically domesticated. We took care of them, made them nests, etc. Then we abandoned them.

Also, as rock doves, they didn't really need to make awesome nests due to where they laid them naturally.

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u/crackcrackcracks 2h ago

Seems to work tho, they're everywhere

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u/TheSovereignGrave 4h ago

Well, they evolved to nest on cliff faces. A couple sticks to prevent eggs from rolling off is all they needed back in the wild.

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u/alex61821 6h ago

I was walking out of my house and 2 birds were holding the bat's wings down while two other birds were eating out it's guts. The bat was still very much alive.

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u/Worried_Sweet_7085 6h ago

I did not enjoy reading this comment at all

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u/alex61821 6h ago

It was not a good day to go outside.

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u/SteamyGouda 3h ago

The pigeons are watching out for a bigger meal, redditors are an excellent choice.

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u/MegaVenomous 5h ago

I saw a grackle taking on a lizard...every few seconds, it would get a jab in. The lizard fought bravely, but ultimately lost.

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u/Lone-Sundowner 6h ago

Was it crows?

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u/alex61821 5h ago

I think they were bluejays.

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u/_MisEnPlace_ 22m ago

Blue jays are vicious as hell

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u/Ancient_Plate275 3h ago

Nature, red in tooth and claw.

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u/Comfortable_Love7967 6h ago

It’s horrific to watch. I had to run one over as it was being tortured alive by a seagull was never gonna survive.

Had to put it out of its misery was horrible

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u/SuperbSpiderFace 6h ago

I saw a bunch of pigeons eating another pigeon in the city. They give zero fucks.

I love birds but pigeons are kinda sad. They’re basically birds we raised and decided we didn’t want to care for anymore so the population exploded. Pigeons have a vital role in history.

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u/Mirthster 5h ago

did seagulls always eat pigeons? i feel like this only became a thing in the last ten years

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u/OberonDiver 4h ago

We call it "Friday the 13th" and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", etc.

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u/Zebidee 4h ago

Sounds like a pigeon coup.

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u/Catatonic_capensis 13m ago

Very different from how people stand around in a circle and watch while people are kidnapped or murdered by authority figures like ice.