{"id":132932,"date":"2025-11-14T12:35:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T12:35:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/132932\/"},"modified":"2025-11-14T12:35:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T12:35:13","slug":"country-diary-feeding-frenzies-really-live-up-to-their-name-fish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/132932\/","title":{"rendered":"Country diary: Feeding frenzies really live up to their name | Fish"},"content":{"rendered":"

Out to sea there is a squadron of juvenile great black-backed gulls<\/a>, each one dark as a witch\u2019s cape against the tide\u2019s limpid sheen. I turn my scope to match their flight,\u00a0chasing them until they splash down at the edge of a messy\u00a0raft of birds.<\/p>\n

At first I just tick off the species: adult herring, common and great black-backed gulls, dipping their heads almost casually into the water; a gannet irritably wielding its sword-like bill at the mob; razorbills and guillemots in their seasonal tuxedos, diving down and popping up around the larger birds. Askance of the main fray, cormorants buck smoothly under the surface and more gulls tip from the sky. When a winter\u2011white<\/a> black\u2011headed gull struggles back into the air with a silver rag hanging from its bill, I pull back my scope and finally realise what\u2019s happening. I\u2019m witnessing a feeding frenzy \u2013\u00a0a\u00a0bait ball<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tyrella Beach in County Down. Photograph: Mary Montague<\/p>\n

Fish often gather<\/a> in shoals, providing many eyes to scan for danger, as well as cover within the crowd. Schooling \u2013 the coordinated movement of a shoal as it travels \u2013 may similarly reduce the risk of an individual fish\u00a0becoming a predator\u2019s meal. But a school can also attract the attention of multiple predators. Small fish, like sprat<\/a> (Sprattus sprattus) or young herring<\/a> (Clupea harengus), are known as forage<\/a> or bait fish. In\u00a0the Irish Sea, these are preyed on\u00a0by\u00a0larger species such as mackerel<\/a>, cod<\/a> or sea bass<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The fish predators largely hunt on an individual basis, and don\u2019t necessarily cooperate, but they can be more successful when attacking as part of a group. If they surround a school of forage fish that has also been tracked by keen-eyed avian piscivores, the birds will join in the hunt by diving<\/a> and swimming underwater<\/a>. The besieged school swirls and flinches into a tight sphere \u2013 this is the bait ball. At last, driven from below by its attackers, or attempting to escape by the only\u00a0available route, the bait ball spirals up through the water to smash against air\u2019s wall.<\/p>\n

I stare down the scope\u2019s tunnel at\u00a0the aftermath: a surface\u00a0churning\u00a0with fish and jostling with birds. Then quite suddenly, almost as if a wand has been waved, the birds drift apart over a slowly unwrinkling sea.<\/p>\n

Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian\u2019s Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order at guardianbookshop.com<\/a> and get a 15% discount<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Out to sea there is a squadron of juvenile great black-backed gulls, each one dark as a witch\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":132933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[85,46,141,386],"class_list":{"0":"post-132932","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}