Bird brain?

The road leading up from (or down to) the old harbour was too steep for motor cars so in 1913 a new loop with a gentler gradient was built. The 'old road' remains as a footpath, still with a hard surface. I often find these broken whelk shells scattered  on it. They are dropped there by gulls that pick them out of the harbour and fly up to drop them so they break, allowing the birds to access the meat.

This is a known behaviour of gulls (and crows too) and has been widely studied although it's not established for certain whether the trick is learnt, copied or inherited. In some parts of America the shell-dropping causes outrage when car roof routinely get dented.

I haven't actually seen the gulls in action but what I would be interested to know is whether they chose this quiet, safe hard surface in preference to the busy road close by where they could get hit by vehicles when they land to pick the flesh.  I suspect they do.

These birds have nothing on the lammergeier or bearded vulture which drops huge bones from a great height to extract the marrow. See here.
(It was this bird that was reputed to have killed the Greek poet Aeschylus by dropping a tortoise on his head, mistaking it for a stone.)