Sure are a lot of seagulls down there. Family day at the beach? Or is it because the sun finally came out?
Hmm…. They seem to be all talking at once, and with their mouths full too. Ill-mannered scavengers.
Ahh … I see. It’s poor man’s caviar time. The herring have spawned near the beach.
I might try a lick or two when those pesky seagulls move along.
*Herring roe and seagull photos by Paul Knettig.
“Junior! What are you looking at down there?”
“Nothing interesting, Ma. I’m just wondering who’s going to clean up all the mess those seagulls are making. After eating all those herring and the herring roe, I bet it’s pretty slick and hummy on that roof.”
“The squawking and shrieking is ear piercing. They have no pride. Slithering around on that roof as they digest their shreds of herring. But I guess they do a good job of cleaning up the beaches. If only they’d clean up the roof after they … you know …. But wait! What’s that I hear the seagulls saying?”
So much fuss over a little fish.
But it is a very popular fish, especially on the tables of the UK and Germany. You can have it smoked or fried, or fried and served in tomato sauce, or pickled and rolled up into Rollmops. If you like fish, you probably love herring.
My mother told me that back in the days before WWII, a fishmonger was selling herring in the street, and he called out to the customers, “Herring! Herring! So fett wie der Goering.” (“Herring! Herring! As fat as Goering” [the commander-in-chief of the Nazi air force]). Since Goering’s name rhymed with the name of the fish, it caused a chuckle among the townspeople who came out of their houses to buy his fish.
But the Nazi bigwigs didn’t like to be made fun of so they arrested the fishmonger and put him in jail for two weeks.
When he was released, the fishmonger went back out onto the streets to sell his herring, calling out, “Herring! Herring! … As fat as … they were two weeks ago.”
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Right now the local herring fishery is winding up and the cleanup begins.
Here is a photo of the beach area below our house where you can see the herring spawn turning the water close to shore a turquoise blue colour.
The seiners have caught their allowed quotas of herring and most have gone home. There is still a lot of herring spawn (eggs) in the water, a lot of it stuck to seaweed and being washed up on the beach.
This is what the seagulls gorge themselves on.
The one on the bottom left has “egg on his face” but doesn’t seem to mind it. See the herring roe sitting on his beak?
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In my other blog, you might be interested in a post about what turns readers off.
https://annelisplace.wordpress.com/2021/03/20/what-turns-readers-off/
The seiners wait in the harbour for the signal that the herring are fat enough, with a high enough roe count, to allow the roe herring fishery to proceed.
Rafts of sea lions are waiting too. They will take advantage of the herring being “rounded up” in the purse seines of the big boats. Many herring “escape,” right into the waiting jaws of these huge mammals.
Some of them like the fishy smell coming from small power boats and are trying to investigate up close.
Seagulls wheel around the seiners trying to grab any herring that swims too close to the surface.
This immature eagle is about to find out that the beach will be full of bounty as roe and herring and bycatch float ashore. These foods provide much-needed calories for the eagles especially at their nesting time, which happens very soon after the herring fishery. Healthy eagles will have healthy chicks.
And let’s not forget that as much as we scoff at seagulls and their shrieking habits, they are the janitors of the beaches, cleaning up every bit of mess.
Once the carnage has been cleaned up, the animals have to scrounge what food they can until next year’s feast.
wordsfromanneli 