A cousin from England is staying with me for a few days. Today I took him to the coast, straight to Bodega Headland, where we had difficulty holding open our car doors against the thrust of a 35 knot blast from the north-west. Hunkered down beneath the logs supported on concrete blocks to prevent cars from rolling over the cliff edge, two ravens eyed our approach as if measuring our auras for colors denoting our generosity. My cousin marked the particular insecurity of the lesser bird, how it seemed to defer to its companion as if to an older brother. I took out of my backpack a couple of good chips and walked gently up to the birds holding out my offering. As soon as they became uneasy, I flicked one under the log where it was immediately seized by the older animal, snapped in half, and the hard, jagged pieces swallowed one half at a time without a blink of the steady black eyes.
Cousin and I hiked up and over the headland, staying a little away from the cliff edge in case a gust of wind were to pick up my tottering steps and throw them over. It was hard sledding for this old bod and I was happy enough to sit on the ground and wait for his return, enjoying the silver sheen of the sun flickering on the waves as they rolled down from the north to crash onto the rocks below.
When we returned to the car I observed how pleasant it was to get in out of the wind; much as I love it, one tires of it when it is so strong and steady. I suggested we drive down off the headland to seek a more sheltered spot for lunch. The bay was much calmer than the top of Bodega Head, and we found a picnic table immediately. A few gulls standing or lying around the table notified us of their presence and great need as soon as we sat down by opening their beaks wide and screeching at us in falsetto mode. My requests for quiet being soon observed, I opened our lunch bag and laid out the victuals and drinks. A circle immediately formed around us as if we were guests in their courthouse whom they welcomed with much raucous cawing.
I spoke to a few of the gulls near me urging them to shut their beaks if they wanted some scraps; two complied at once, a lovely mature bird with brilliant white plumage, trimmed in black, a white and yellow beak sporting an orange spot near its tip, and another bird dressed in the usual drab brown feathers and black beak of immaturity. I tossed scraps of my tuna fish sandwich to one of them at a time, apparently convincing them of my harmlessness, for they hopped up on the seat of the picnic table to retrieve scraps from the table top. And it wasn’t long before both of them became bold enough to get up on the table itself, from where they then had to ward off flock mates diving in for treats.
Feeding seagulls in the past had convinced me to be wary of those beaks of theirs, for the top part carries a pointed hook which can pierce the skin of a finger tip with ease, not intentionally, but just because the birds strike to catch their prey like a snake darting out of its coiled position. So I addressed my feathered new friend much as I have spoken to dogs looking for treats. I told the bird in a friendly, calm voice to take it easy, not to snatch, and that it would have seconds if it took the food gently. Then breaking off a little piece of my sandwich and holding it between thumb and forefinger, I stretched out my arm towards the animal and held it there.
The bird did a little foot shuffling, all the while looking at me with those passionless, unblinking eyes, black of pupil, yellow of iris, moving closer to my extended hand, withdrawing a moment, moving feet. Then all at once the gull committed itself and moved smoothly and gently to take the morsel from my fingers without even touching them with its beak.
“Good job!” I told it, and broke off another piece, this time with some tuna fish on it. The same little dance occurred, though not as long, and a similar easy retrieval of the snack took place, leaving my fingers intact. I was elated! Junior moved in to pick up little pieces dropped from the catch. So I tried to coax him into a civilized feeding too. He wasn’t such a quick learner or quite as brave. I had to flick pieces to him though he was still on the table.
The feeding continued until my sandwich was consumed, though admittedly mostly by myself, the walking having given me a good appetite. But I still had chips and an apple, though I could not imagine a bird being able to consume chunks of that firm fruit. Both tried; however their bills had insufficient leverage to reduce the pieces to pulp so they could swallow them. The chips they broke into manageable morsels demonstrating the use of their beaks as tearing and pecking tools. And when the remaining chips were only in small pieces, the gulls bent their necks so that the sides of their beaks were flush with the table. There I noticed slight bulges on either side, perfect for scooping up crumbs.
Like raptors, the eyes of Jonathan Livingstone were almost in the front of his head, providing him over 200 degrees of vision and giving him that peculiar appearance of a hard stare. I was left wondering if it was this determined and hypnotic look that had separated me from my lunch.
As I sat there staring back at the bird, Jonathan Livingstone seemed to place a query in my mind.
“Besides their usefulness for binocular vision, why do you suppose we have two eyes”?
“I can’t imagine,” I answered perplexed.
“So that we can look at the finger pointing to the moon with one, and at the moon with the other.” With that he spread his wings, caught the wind, and sailed straight up into the sky which was too bright for me to follow him.
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