Why do seagulls fly in a circle

It only takes a minute to sign up. Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. I was recently at a music festival in a field here in the UK. It was a nice hot day and I was staring up into the lovely blue sky. I noticed there were high numbers of seagulls circling above, seemingly riding thermals to a great height they quickly became speks in the sky. If they were riding the thermals as a mode of transport, they didn't appear to be going anywhere just round and round in circles.

It didn't make sense that they were doing it to spot food either that I thought. There was plenty of food about, but none of them appeared to be making any attempt to come down. For the same reason carrion birds circle over fresh kills: They're waiting for an opportunity to swoop in and get some food. All the gulls see is a large gathering of humans, which typically means dropped chips, bits of hotdog buns, discarded scraps, leftovers on tables, people throwing bits for the birds.

Wherever you have big gatherings of large mammals there will be flocks of scavengers. You'll see the same behaviours in nature too, scavengers will follow herds of deer or caribou waiting for one of them to either drop dead or get picked off by a predator so they can swoop down to pick away at what gets left behind.

The reason they ride the thermals and circle overhead is so they can conserve energy while they watch and wait. They are centering good thermal spots and picking up altitude so they're not putting any effort into flying while looking for food. As the air warms, the less dense warmer air begins to rise, creating an updraft column of air which continues to rise until it cools and falls back down to the earth.

As a Bluehost Affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Thermals are common near hills and mountains where the sun heats one side faster than the other and the warmer air, in turn, creates this updraft of air. They can form in many places, near lakes and rivers as air typically warms much faster above the nearby land as it does over water, above plowed fields, highways or other areas where the dark ground is beside lighter, leafy areas.

I bet most of you have seen a thermal in the form known as a dust devil. This is a very small, intense form of thermal which is easily seen by the dust and debris it picks up from spinning around so intensely. Dust devils are common, at least in my neck of the woods, that is, around plowed farm fields. Larger, less intense thermals are often characterized by newly forming cumulus clouds, where the warmer air rises, cools and leaves any moisture in the air to condense and form as a cloud.

Larger types of thermals like this are what birds use to soar and circle high above the earth. Birds are similar to you and me, they like to conserve energy whenever they can and riding thermals does indeed help birds become more efficient in their flight.

Some birds, such as vultures, condors and even eagles, for example, use thermals to scan the terrain below for food for hours while others, such as migrating hawks, utilize them to traverse their long migration route. Regardless of the particular use, birds do indeed make good use of thermals by helping them conserve energy in their flight by locking their wings, per se, and let the rising air give them lift. Many species of birds, if not all types of birds, could take some advantage of thermals, but some are much more adapted to it than others because of their wing size and shape.

These small, dark birds spend most of their time on the ground and since they never migrate, only leaving the refuge to nearby fields during the winter, red-winged blackbirds here have little use for thermals. Birds that mainly migrate at night, which is, in fact, a great number of species of birds, miss out on the use of thermals for migration purposes as this weather phenomenon only occurs during daylight hours.

But there are many birds which do use thermals. A variety of birds, such as some hawks, eagles, vultures, pelicans, and gulls, for example, do utilize thermals in one way or another, either for migration, scanning the terrain for food or, in the case of the American white pelican on the Bear River Refuge, traversing back and forth between their nesting colony and the refuge to feed.

As I have said earlier, wing shape and size play a role in how easily a bird can soar and utilize thermals. Birds that take full advantage of a thermal are ones that have one thing in common, wings designed for maximum lift by being long, wide, or sometimes a bit of both.

Some birds, such as vultures, have short, broad wings that allow them to remain aloft and very maneuverable at low speeds. Today I noticed that there was a bigger then usual amount of Seagulls flying all together in circles.

Some really high up, like the way hawks circle food. Do Seagulls really do this before a storm? If so, that would be so cool! So the weather man last night was calling for snow in the Mts. I guss we will just have to wait and see.

It was really cool to find this article!!! Saw this for the first time on evening Tuesday Aug 18th here near the south coast of Ireland when I noticed about thirty seagulls flying in a circular pattern which was moving from the South West to the North East which would be inland. I was amazed watching it — so thanks for the explanation.

On Wednesday, exactly 24 hours after I saw them we had a storm here in Ireland. I was sitting in my allotment in Yarm Teesside yesterday evening about 7. I often see movement of flocks of corvids later in the day, but this was extraordinary, so many for so long and in one direction on into the distance. Was this anything to do with storm Francis? Almost certainly yes. They seem to be able to forecast 4 or 5 days out and the circling is their way of testing the air pressure changes.

Cormorants can tell when it going to rain and when a dry spell is due. If flying towards the coast o dry spell is due. The reason is that during a dry spell fish will accumulate at the estuary because the river water is low.

When it rains fish will go upstream and there will be plenty in the lakes feeding the rivers. Cormorants seem to know this and so can predict the weather. Good question. Quite a lot of birds are becoming confused by light pollution into night time activity but as it was dark sounds like it was something else!! Can you guess who it is? Have a peek here to find out […].