My Seagull Friend

I was sitting on the beach yesterday, reading a book and minding my own business when this young seagull alighted on the sand a few feet away from me. I turned to look at him, smiled and said something like "I don't have anything for you, buddy," knowing that gulls are often drawn in when a person is eating, but demonstrating that I did not have any food for him or for me.  

I returned to reading my book at which point he took a few steps toward me. When I looked up from my book to take a closer look at him, he looked at me, all innocence. He was young, I could tell that because his head still had the scattering of light brown spots that gulls have for their first year or so. He was so close I could see his yellow legs and noticed the rubbery, slightly grubby texture of them, like a child's toy that had been dragged from place to place accumulating a bit of dirt along the way. 

We looked at each other for a while longer. He took breaks to poke his beak into his shoulder feathers and satisfy an itch, while I glanced back at my book now and then. My book was good, but to be honest it could not compete with the proximity of my seagull friend who persisted in standing at my shoulder, sneaking closer step by step when he thought I wasn't looking.

As he crept nearer, I got a chance to see his beak close up, and was careful to keep my hands tucked in my lap, unsure just how far our friendship would take us, not knowing what role a beak plays in seagull-human relationships. He might think he was just reaching out with a friendly gesture, while for me it could result in a painful nip. At this point, he bent his head down toward the sand and started to screech. "Gosh, his mouth is absolutely bright orange!" I noticed as he verbalized his frustration. 

He flew off and landed a little ways down the beach. I thought that was probably the end of our little encounter, but after a minute or two of poking around the sand down there, he flew back to his sentry post at my shoulder. He looked me in the eye as if to re-establish our rapport, and took a few steps toward me again. At that point he looked away. It seemed studied to me, as if he was attempting to adopt a carefree attitude about whether I was glad to see him or not.

"How are you doing, buddy?" I asked, wanting to put him at ease and reassure him of our continuing bond. I started wondering if he might have been one of those young gulls I saw just days after hatching on Monhegan Island back in June. Gary had returned to his seat next to me by then so together we wondered about gulls and migration. Would a gull born in Maine make his way to Florida for the winter? I had no idea, but I was trying to make sense of the interest this young guy was showing toward me.

For the next hour or so he continued to stand nearby watching me intently, sometimes taking breaks to fly off down the beach for an interaction with another gull, or to shake off some of the excess energy he must have been building up by standing at my shoulder for so long. But he kept coming back.

When it came time for Gary and I to leave I felt like I was abandoning a friend. I assumed he would fly off when we stood up and started packing up our chairs, but no, he stood right there watching us. Even as we walked away, offering encouragement as we left. I worried that he would stand there and watch us until we were out of sight. My heart was already feeling sad at leaving him, and I didn't think I could take it if he kept looking at me so intently. 

When we were about ten feet away, he started moving as if to follow us, but then stopped at a pile of seaweed and started picking it apart, looking for something to eat, I assume. Seeing that he had something new to hold his attention, I felt more comfortable leaving. "Maybe we will see you another day, buddy!" I called out, and who knows, maybe we will?