MY PROBLEM WITH LAUGHING GULLS

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A laughing gull steals a fish from a brown pelican in Key West. MARK HEDDEN/Keys Weekly

I’ve been attempting for some time to determine my drawback with laughing gulls.

It’s not one thing I’ve been analyzing on an on a regular basis foundation, like my incapacity to coach a canine, or my maladroitness at making high-quality small speak, but it surely pops up in my thoughts each every so often. Notably after I’m taking a look at a laughing gull.

It resurfaced the opposite day whereas I used to be using my bike across the island on the lookout for some avian pleasure. I cruised alongside Relaxation Seaside, did an out-and-back on the White Avenue Pier, scofflawed my approach beneath the walk-your-bike overhang at West Martello, and soft-pedaled previous Salute, the place a small crew was freshening up the mural on the fence. Generally you may get shorebirds within the smoothed-out sand of the littoral zone down close to (Former-Vice-President-Cheney’s-first-name) Dock, so I walked my bike on the market. Nothing. Till I regarded down and noticed a mid-sized posse of laughing gulls standing within the sand, staring off in about 9 completely different instructions. Ugh, I believed. After which puzzled, why all the time the ugh? 

Arguably, as a birdwatcher, I ought to recognize all birds. I don’t have to like all of them equally – everybody has their favorites. However each hen species is the results of eons of evolution. Each hen species has labored out its area of interest within the pure world, and typically within the unnatural world, and that needs to be appreciated. 

Actually, I consider it as a private failing. If I have been a extra appreciative, extra perceptive naturalist I’d discover a private avenue of appreciation for the laughing gulls. The truth that they’re probably the most ubiquitous birds on the east coast shouldn’t make me suppose much less of them. An enormous inhabitants means they’re good at making their approach on this planet. If the one factor that perks your curiosity in birds (or the rest) is its rarity, you don’t love the hen (or the factor) a lot as you like its statistic. You’re like a type of music snobs you knew in highschool who solely appreciated a band when nobody else appreciated it. 

Birders who’re actually into gulls are referred to as laridophiles. And whereas I’m no laridophile, I’m definitely no laridophobe. I’ve a giant appreciation/fondness for gulls each massive and small  – Bonaparte’s gulls, herring gulls, lesser black-backed gulls, even ring-billed gulls. One of many higher mornings of my life was a decade or two in the past after I was out birding with a man named Gerard Phillips and we discovered one of many first slaty-backed gulls ever seen within the decrease 48 states. (I knew it was a bizarre gull not usually seen round right here; he knew instantly what species it was.)

I believe my points with laughing gulls fall into two classes. First, from a purely aesthetic standpoint, they’re boring. They begin life a lackluster, scuffed-shoe brown, then molt via varied permutations of mismatched grey till they hit maturity, wanting not unreminiscent of a automotive somebody began restoring, however gave up on, leaving mismatched shades of Bondo and primer. Granted, as adults, in peak breeding season, they’ll look fairly snazzy, with a darkish grey mantle, a black head, a sporty white damaged eye ring, and a invoice that may be fully deep purple, or simply black and lined a deep purple on the edges, like lipstick. However within the non-breeding season they revert again to a paler grey and a patchy piebald head. 

And it’s not simply that. Laughing gulls are arguably actually good at nearly all the things they do. After being practically worn out within the early 1900s as a result of egg gathering and the hat-making commerce, authorized protections have helped them come again to over half one million breeding pairs on the east coast, the Gulf and Caribbean.

Laughing gulls are additionally amazingly sturdy and exact flyers, capable of maintain their very own in 6-knot winds. They simply do all the things with no panache or elan. They make all the things look so … unremarkable.

Additionally – and this second class of my points often is the greatest half – laughing gulls are assholes. I’ve given a complete PowerPoint presentation about this. However the brief model is, they steal from and harass different birds after they don’t must. Laughing gulls are fairly omnivorous, and insanely versatile of their eating regimen. I may fill the remainder of this column simply itemizing the classes of meals they’ll ingest and digest with no drawback. So they’re by no means missing for sustenance. 

When a brown pelican dives into the water and comes up with a gular pouch of fish, they should sit for a couple of seconds to let the water drain out the edges of their mouth earlier than swallowing. I can’t inform you what number of instances I’ve seen a laughing gull swoop in, land on prime of the brown pelican’s head, after which pry the pelican’s invoice open with their shorter, extra chisel-like invoice, to allow them to steal fish from the pelican’s mouth. 

I’ve additionally seen them do very related acts of kleptoparasitism to white ibis. 

It’s simply so pointless. And certain, possibly it’s inapt and arguably insane to guage an animal’s conduct by fussy human ethical codes, however come on. Not cool.

I’m not arguing in opposition to their proper to exist or something. They little doubt fill plenty of obligatory ecological niches that assist preserve the pure world from falling into imbalance greater than it already is. I simply need them to do higher.

My good friend Matt Talbot is a severe dwelling brewer. I’m wowed and impressed by how good he’s at it, how experimental he can get, how nice all of it tastes. (This isn’t simply because he offers the beer to his pals free of charge.) The one hitch I see in his beer-making giddyup is the labels he places on his bottles: Laughing Gull Brewing. I forgive him for this, regardless of having shared my opinions concerning the shortcomings of laughing gulls various instances. 

I texted him after I began this column, requested him to make a protection of the laughing gulls, to indicate me what I may be lacking. He texted again fairly rapidly.

“I like that they’re unassuming, not flashy or wanting to attract consideration, however they’ve these sensible eyes. They’re affected person, observant and intelligent seashore snack thieves. I’ve watched them stalk from a distance and look ahead to some shoobies to go away a bag of chips unattended, then actually open the bag and assist themselves,” he texted. (Shoobies is considerably pejorative slang for day trippers on the Jersey Shore.)

“They’re not laughing with us, they’re mockingly laughing at us and so they’re proper to,” he stated.

Laughing gulls as brokers of chaos — I may very well have the ability to heat to that idea.

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