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[[underlined]] Larus delawarensis [[/underlined]] Gulls were busy flying over the fields all day when not sitting in flocks on the ground waiting for digestion to make way for more mice. At one time I counted two flocks of 26 and 53 sitting on the ground while others were circling over the field. This was in about a 40 acre field where the mice have ruined the alfalfa crop. The gulls are often seen diving to the ground for a mouse and many a quarrel takes place over the prize. The mice are gulped down whole, so little time is wasted.
On the roosting grounds lots of pellets of mouse hair and bones are found & the gull pellets can be distinguished from those of hawks & owls by their open, scattered form. Apparently a gull picks part of the bones out of a pellet after it comes up & so tears it open.
Gulls often are seen chasing mice on the ground and evidently catching them by help of wings and legs. A sudden flurry in some part of the flock of sleepy gulls, a rush and flutter of wings indicates