Of all living creatures, none is more loyal and selfless than the seagull. A seagull is twice as loyal as a boa constrictor; and, it is fifty percent more selfless than a house cat. Plus, you can make swell puns with its name, like “gulls just want to have fun”. It’s closest relative, the tern, also lends itself readily to puns (e.g.: “…leaving no tern un-stoned”). The animal a seagull most resembles in behavior is the cockroach or rat. I don’t mean that in a bad way, but that’s pretty much the only way to interpret it.
Seagulls are of the family laridae, under the order charadriiformes. Not many people know this. I base that assumption on the fact that both words confounded my spell-checker. There are around fifty species of gull. And, these species can range in size from a few ounces to almost four pounds… with the exception of those species that are larger or smaller than that. They tend to have white bodies, which would make them the only white scavengers, if we excluded albino hyenas. I’ve never seen an albino hyena; but, you’d have to think one would have to be born every so often. There are probably even legends built around them: The Great White Hyena! Does it give wishes, provide wisdom or make your cattle sterile? We’ll just have to wait and see…
Gulls are cosmopolitan, which means they are EVERYWHERE! The only ways to avoid ever seeing one is to either blind yourself, or move to Neptune. I recommend moving to Neptune because the blind can still hear their awful discordant cries. Imagine the voice of the most shrewish woman you can conceive but in a language you don’t speak. That is the haunting call of the gull.
Richard Bach’s best-selling book, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, teaches us an important lesson: A book doesn’t have to be good to be a best-seller… oh, and believe in yourself… blah blah blah…
A gulls natural diet is anything a person drops or cannot defend effectively. When garbage is not available, gulls eat any animal that doesn’t have the peripheral vision or common sense to see it coming: Fish, crabs, birthday party clowns, fruit, worms, eggs, lizards and mollusks. A gull can open clams and oysters by dropping them on rocks or rock-colored commuters. When you see them chasing a terrified toddler holding a bag of popcorn, you come to the realization that the concept of scavenging is kind of lost on them. It ISN’T scavenging when the previous owner is still clutching it.
Gulls often follow ocean predators to feed on the smaller fish that break the surface to escape the underwater predator. Scientists agree that the look of surprise on the fish’s face is PRICELESS.
In the fall, most gull species migrate to areas where the garbage cans and dumpsters aren’t as chilly. Personally, I’ve never been to the seaside and seen it void of gulls. Maybe the gulls that are there in the winter go down south and other gulls migrate to where they were. As long as they keep busy, they won’t be hanging out on street corners selling drugs…
Seagulls are monogamous; this is hardly a surprise because if you screeched all of the time and your breath smelled like carp and cigarette butts, you’d probably settle for whoever would take you. The bound pair can even distinguish each other’s call from out of hundreds. The male stands in the middle of a thousand birds waiting for that shrill voice that makes his buttocks clench and his testicles pull up into his body cavity. [As you can see, I have a LOT of issues]. Males and females build their nest, together. The male never gets it the way the female likes it, but they are pair bound for life, so neither really gives a crap anymore.
In Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull, a dead seagull is used as a theme, a metaphor AND foreshadowing… it is the most use anyone has ever gotten from a seagull.
The female lays two or three speckled eggs; and, both parents incubate the eggs. Sometimes, a female will pair-bond to another female with sexy results. Incubation lasts between three and four weeks… just enough time to pick a name. I recommend “Michael”…
Notable species of gull include:
Belcher’s Gull was formally lumped in with Olrog’s Gull, but that name wasn’t hilarious enough. They range along the Pacific coast of South America. The IUCN gives it an endangerment rating of “least concern” which is far nicer than the rating of “who cares?”…
Gloucous-winged Gull: Their habitat is the Pacific coast of North America. They are a large gull and therefore, mentally slower than the other gulls. They are protected by the U.S. Migratory Bird Treaty Act so, if you have a grudge against one, you’d better handle it through arbitration…
The Mediterranean Gull‘s habitat is the steppes of Mongolia. For those of you unfamiliar with it, that was irony. This gull has a black head and a white body. It’s cry is uncannily like when you sit on your dog’s squeaky toy. The Mediterranean Gull is protected by Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds, the same agreement that makes it illegal to laugh at the Three Tenors…
The Herring Gull, despite its name, doesn’t hear any better than any other gull. It is a large white bird, nearly driven to extinction when it was hunted for its feathers and eggs; but, now that we have all of the feathers and eggs we’ll ever need, it has rebuilt its population to the point of being classified as “Least Concern”. It might be interesting to you that gull biologist Daniel Cristol studied the Herring Gull and determined that they learn to drop clams onto hard surfaces from other Herring Gulls. This ability to learn is what inspired many of them to take up smoking a pipe…
Sabine’s Gull is an arctic bird that migrates south in the fall. It returns to the Arctic right about the time that those down south start getting tired of their nonsense. They are gray-winged with a white body. This gull was named after its discoverer, Edward Sabine, who also has two islands, a mountain and a moon crater with his name. Judging from his photograph, he was the kind of a guy who enjoyed evicting orphans and unwed mothers from their homes; but, to be fair, everybody’s photograph had that feel to it in the nineteenth century.
Gull fossils go back thirty million years… although, in a pinch, I’m sure you could make a fresh one. What they ate before they had homo sapians to swarm around is still a mystery….
Potatoes and the Promise of More Potatoes 