The beautifully brutal life of gulls

This week I'm on the Island of Science Writing. Today we wandered rocky coves with Tufts University biologist Julie Ellis, an expert on gulls. She showed us how to catch and band juvenile herring gulls--and how to recognize the matted remains of juvenile herring gulls coughed up by their great black-backed gulls predators. Life here is pretty, and yet not so pretty. But always interesting for writing about.