Suicidal Seagull

I love to see seagulls in flight.  They fly so gracefully.  It seems almost magical the way they hang themselves in the air where the water meets the beach.   Near my house, there is a bridge where the seagulls love to drop their clams.  They drop the clams from 20 or 30 feet in the air then dive bomb right behind the tumbling clam.  A foot or two above the bridge deck they pull up, gracefully land, scoop up the clam meat and fly off to enjoy their snack.

I used to wonder why they immediately went into a precipitous dive when they dropped the clam.  The reason is because seagulls are not polite and they are very opportunistic.  They will steal each others food — in mid air.

The other day, one of the brown seagulls in the area dropped a clam and went into a dive.  You probably don’t think too much about seagull behavior.  I don’t either except when I’m driving by the beach.  Every time I need to go into town or get on the highway I must cross this bridge so I see a lot of seagull behavior.  My mind is pretty active so even if I’m singing along with the radio I still have enough spare cycles to watch the seagulls.  I began to wonder, do they get sick? Do seagulls have autism?  Are there ADHD seagulls.  Well this particular seagull definately had a handicap.  I believe it had poor depth perception and a thick skull.   Unfortunately, this time, it didn’t pull up in time and smashed into the bridge deck.  The clam was murdered but the seagull committed accidental suicide.

Posted in Yarns | No Comments »