Where The Buoys Are Some Gulls Wait For Me

I was doing some research and writing for a friend, and I had stopped by to leave her my completed work at the end of our day. We considered future shared projects, but we also discussed how soup weather is settling in, and thus the appetite for soup fixed in my head. I went to the local Stop & Shop to see what I could find to satisfy that craving. I had been thinking about my mother in recent days and how we always had oyster stew on the darkest, wettest days of winter. For my family, that might mean a visit out to where the fishermen brought the oysters in as “step one” in soup making.

While I was shopping I glanced down the aisle that held pet products and saw dried dog food. My mother was very big on feeding birds, and for a time we had a large crow population that was inclusive in that mix. My mother would throw sticks at the crows to keep them from eating the pricier seed she had put out for her cardinals and goldfinches, but my argument was “birds are birds” and they should all be allowed at the plate. When the crow population hit its peak, (and it has since been decimated due to West Nile Virus more than anything else,) was when my mother figured out crows like eating dried dog food, and that it would immediately divert them away from the sunflower seed.

"If you take a dog which is starving and feed him
and make him prosperous, that dog will not bite you.
This is the primary difference between a dog and a man."
~~ Mark Twain

Last evening at twilight, I put on my heaviest sweater, boots and all-weather coat and went out to the shoreline with an eight pound bag of dried dog food to feed the seagulls. You don’t think seagulls eat dog food? Au contraire, you gourmands, you. I thought, “What’s good for the crows, is good for the gulls.” I know many think seagulls are nothing more than flying rodents, but for me…boids is boids.

At first I tossed food down by the waterline. There was one gull, obviously bigger than the rest. Let’s call him “Frank.” Frank had to be the leader of this little pack, and I watched as he tilted his head back to the sky, letting out this raucous cry, alerting the others that the “shape” had “food.” It isn’t often in nature that you witness an animal hold back in eating from an obvious food source. Usually it’s every creature for themselves, but I have seen this twice now in an animal population. Crows always wait until the group is gathered. I saw it last night again with the gulls. Not "mine, mine, mine" at all. Also, there was an obvious limit to this clan’s size. That surprised me, too. I thought birds would be coming from everywhere.

"This is my home. My country.
Frank Lucas don't run from nobody. This is America."

~~Frank Lucas in American Gangster

See Mr. Black and White on the left? Mr. Big. American Gangstah Gull. I think the others were calling him “Frank.” The first time I took a step…a slow step…they took off back over the water, but then flew back in. I stood very still for a while, and ultimately they were eating down by my feet.

"I'm in mourning for my life." ~~Anton Chekov, "The Seagull"

A week ago, I went to see a late movie, hadn’t really thought out dinner, and stopped by Tiki Port over in Hyannis for some hot and sour soup to go. They have the oddest habit of giving you rolls with your Chinese food, and the next morning I broke up the roll and fortune cookies for Frank and the gang. One fortune read, “It’s not the end yet. Let’s stay with it.” I figure that’s telling the birds at low tide to keep looking for that elusive golden clam. Another one was “Time to tie up those loose ends with beautiful bows.” Get serious and stop drifting on the thermals?

“The world was my oyster, but I used the wrong fork.”
~~Oscar Wilde

It was the strangest thing. They ate all of the food I tossed out, and then instead of going back to the waterline to seek more food, (which I would consider their normal behavior,) they started preening, fluffed out their feathers and lowered into the sand. Looked like nap time to me. I had a guest with me last weekend, and one night she queried, ““What do gulls do at night?” I mean, how would I know? I’m no gullthority. “Watch Letterman?” “Play cards and drink too much?” “Watch the Sox?” I said, “Uh…..sleep?”

Illustration from A Gull's Story