Starting with the dregs, we get the pigeons. Stripped from their usual perch around piles of garbage or power lines away from the ocean proper, at the beach they do their usual thing; scavenging for food. Scattered in large groups cooing around the sand, finding a rare place of solace from the tiny sparrows that always seem to bounce around their larger cousins and nimbly rob them.
Not totally absent, mind you, but the sparrows are not the normal presence you'd expect.
The pigeons are on the bottom of the totem pole. Not that they know, or care, really. They loudly scavenge mindlessly. Instead of the smaller sparrows (mostly), the pigeons are menaced, if that's an appropriate word, by seagulls.
The seagulls are larger and stronger than the pigeons, but they seem a more brutish form of scavenger. The ability to pose a serious bodily threat to the pigeons exist in these gulls, but they seldom act on it.
It being the fall and heading into winter, a series of resting migratory flocks seem to be catching a breather.
The cormorants are off in the water, doing their dense-bone lifestyle.
The gulls do have a nemesis of sorts: crows.
Already the thugs of the world of land, at the continent's edge the crows are forcing their will on the sandy mainstays (gulls and pigeons) with limited success.
I would hazard that the average gull has the ability to easily exert a physical dominance over the average crow. Possessing the ability and exercising the ability aren't the same thing, though, and these baller crows push around the gulls.
The seagulls don't seem to possess that same killer instinct that the crows do.
The pigeon coos and follows you for food. The rare sparrow (at the beach) swoops in and snatches up what the pigeon goes after. A few gulls show up and horn in on the food, not entirely dispelling the pigeons.
The crows are trying to find pigeon and gull eggs to eat.
They seem more out for territory and power, and routinely get in skirmishes with angry mamma gulls. They're the brutes of the beach scene.
Some compassionate part of us humans says something like, "Stupid jerk crow. Let them have their peace." Something I just learned is, why not, crow? Those stupid pigeons and gulls don't have shit to do without being told, so they're probably better off. At least the crow might respect the intrepid sparrow, actively stealing from the pigeons (at least the rare ones out at the sand).
This still leaves the big bad boss to be discussed.
This talk up until now makes it almost sound like the crow is the boss of the beach. The gulls out here aren't actively conceding too much to the crow; they seem to repel the incursions well. That's just what it is: the crow is the instigator, the gull plays defense.
But...
Unconcerned with territory, power plays, or even the notion of being attacked, the true head dinosaur out here literally rises above it all.
The pelican, larger, bulkier, stronger, and tougher than the crows and gulls alike, is left alone. They spend their days not scavenging or scoring territory. They hunt.
All day.
It's very cool to watch. Circling high above the water, they focus their eyes on the surface below. These are the brown pelicans. Ironically, they are the smallest of the pelican species. They are also the only pelicans to dive bomb fish in an ambush to hunt.
There isn't much cooler things to be able to watch in nature than the dive bombing pelican's attack. No other act of predation happens as often or as regularly as the diving pelican. This isn't a Bird of Paradise mating dance. Even if the shoals are gone, it'll only take a few minutes to catch a single hunt. Seriously, it's awesome.
The pelican out here is the apex hunter, the true bird of prey. The crow is the bird of power; the gull is the power scavenger; the pigeon is the prey scavenger; the sparrow is the opportunistic dynamo.
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