I saw seagulls like these in the Southland parking lot as I drove past after getting "carry-out" at Arby's. There seemed to be 200 of them. I stopped over at the parking lot at the strip mall across the street, and found some about 50 yards from the Aldi's store in their parking lot. Here, there were a few, and none of the individuals would allow me to get closer than 30 feet. A couple were together, but most moved as individuals. This got me thinking these thoughts: 1. this seems to be an "opportunistic" species, but (through evolution) were they or their immediate ancestor species "opportunistic"? How did that "opportunism" evolve. Most species find a "niche" where they can live in the environment with other species, but not directly compete. This species seems able to live off of the scraps of industrialized society.
2. How did they come to be here? We have the great lakes, but we tend to think of gulls and the seas. Maybe this is wrong. Maybe gulls evolved along fresh water lakes, and spread to the shorelines of the seas. Speculation is fun, but I should do some research on this. Time to devle into the http://www.wikipedia.org/.
The above image is from "tekkbabe" who lives in this part of the country, and posts on http://www.flickr.com/. This species appears to be the "Herring Gull" (http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Herring_Gull.html#coolfacts)
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