Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!pacbell!ames!ncar!unmvax!nmtsun!john
From: john@nmtsun.nmt.edu (John Shipman)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Re: bird begging
Keywords: begging
Message-ID: <3067@nmtsun.nmt.edu>
Date: 9 Aug 89 03:06:12 GMT
References: <4529@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu>
Reply-To: john@nmtsun.nmt.edu (John Shipman)
Distribution: na
Organization: Zoological Data Processing
Lines: 47

I was fascinated by Mike Burger's posting about birds
begging in Hawaii.  I had a hard time finding some of these
species when I visited there in 1978, and now they're
apparently staked out at his cafeteria!

For a totally different bird-begging experience, try Sam's
restaurant in Tiburon, California.  They have an outdoor
deck that's great for observing gulls at close range.

Sam's serves bread with a big crock of butter to every
customer, and many people order the excellent guacamole.
The gulls get pretty brazen; some gulls will walk off the
railing and right onto your table and start snarfing down
your butter or guacamole, if you don't shoo them away.  The
gulls are pretty wary---I don't think you could lay a finger
on them if you tried---but apparently enough people are (you
should pardon the expression) mellow about it that the gulls
get a rich diet.

One can observe a pecking order among species, and even
among individuals in the same species.  One Western Gull
(whom we named ``Bobby Blue Band'' after the color band on
his leg) was king of the hill, and bullied all the other
Westerns; he ignored butter and would eat only guacamole.
Some Ring-billed Gulls would sit near the tables but seldom
went on tables unless they were unoccupied.  Heermann's
Gulls kept a respectable distance but would pursue bread
crusts thrown on the water.  And like the Zebra Doves that
Mike mentioned, Rock Doves would weave through the patrons'
legs as they gleaned crumbs from the deck.

By the way, the food is excellent (although I haven't been
there in years, friends tell me it's still good); probably
the best cioppino I've ever eaten outside of home cooking.
It's a very Marin County kind of place.  The bar in front is
popular with singles, and yacht owners often tie up right at
the deck for dinner.  A friend of mine once brought his
bazooka-like telephoto camera rig to Sam's to get some
closeups of gull heads, and we were most amused when a
slinky blonde detached herself from her dinner companion to
come over and chat about his camera.  ``Ooh,'' she said in
parting, ``it's so phallic!''
-- 
John Shipman/Zoological Data Processing/Socorro, New Mexico
USENET: ucbvax!unmvax!nmtsun!john  CSNET: john@nmtsun.nmt.edu ``A lesson from
past over-machined societies...the devices themselves condition the users to
employ each other the way they employ machines.'' --Frank Herbert