#the gulls

[canadachronicles]

I Soft is the sky in the mist-kirtled east, Light is abroad on the sea, All of the heaven with silver is fleeced, Holding the sunrise in fee. Lo! with a flash and uplifting of wings Down where the long ripples break, Cometh a bevy of glad-hearted things, 'Tis morn, for the gulls are awake. II Slumberous calm on the ocean and shore Comes with the turn of the tide; Never a strong-sweeping pinion may soar, Where the tame fishing-boats ride! Far and beyond in blue deserts of sea Where the wild winds are at play, There may the spirits of sea-birds be free­ 'Tis noon, for the gulls are away. III Over the rim of the sunset is blown Sea-dusk of purple and gold, Speed now the wanderers back to their own, Wings the most tireless must fold. Homeward together at twilight they flock, Sated with joys of the deep Drowsily huddled on headland and rock­ 'Tis night, for the gulls are asleep.

The Gulls, Lucy Maud Montgomery

Seagulls on the Wellington (New Zealand) Waterfront - 17th October, 2022

[poem-today]

A poem by Alexandra Oliver

The Gulls 

The gulls come down to oversee the lake; Their wings splay out like halves of open books. The beach is filling up and, by the looks Of things, we've made a vague mistake. There's little room for us to spread our towels Among the penguin men, the girls with rooks' Eyes all alert, the timid matron owls.

My smiling, pale son goes off to play. A truck is parked beside the ice cream shack And, from a falcon's wing, big knuckles crack Against a woman's jaw. I hear him say, You keep your smart mouth shut. I take the fries, Try not to watch the bruised flight of her back. The gulls beg off now, swallowed in soft cries.

Alexandra Oliver

More poems by Alexandra Oliver are available on the Mezzo Cammin site.

[totallynotafishthatdbesilly]

I wanna feed the seagulls at the beach SO BAD. they deserve a little treat

[besidethepath]

Not much going on on this post

[lepetitdragonvert]

The Ice Ship

Artist : Angela Barrett (b. 1955)

[constantlyfalling]

[todropscience]

GULLS WILL DECIDE WHAT TO EAT BY WATCHING PEOPLE 

Herring gulls (Larus argentatus) can perfectly thrive in coastal  and urban landscapes, however, these birds will steal your food as soon as you are distracted. Urban gulls pay attention to human behaviour in food-related contexts, and will mimic what humans almost all the time, a new study shown.

In a simple test, researchers studied how herring gulls behave in front person eating snacks on Brighton beachfront, UK. They gave the gulls the choice between two differently coloured potato chips,  and when the human were eating potatos chips from one color, seagulls approached the food, and chose the same colour that the experimenter was eating, the 95 per cent of the time.

Seagulls were able to use human cues for stimulus enhancement and foraging decisions. Given the relatively recent history of urbanization in herring gulls, this cross-species social information transfer could be a by-product of the cognitive flexibility inherent in species who steal food, called kleptoparasitic species. This success in urban environments is suggested to result from behavioural flexibility, which is likely to require specific cognitive adaptations. In food-stealing birds, success is said to reflect an ability to integrate and use information about both the environment and other individuals, and kleptoparasites generally have usually larger relative brain sizes than their hosts.  

Photo by Jon J. Laysel

Reference (Open Access): Feist et al., 2023) Inter-species stimulus enhancement: herring gulls (Larus argentatus) mimic human food choice during foraging. Biology Letters.

[todaysbird]

the ross’s gull (rhodostethia rosea) is a small gull and the only member of their genus. they primarily breed in siberia, living through most of the year on ice packs distributed throughout the arctic. they are known for the soft pink coloration they take on during summers. like other gulls, they primarily feed on aquatic prey like fish and crustaceans. they lay clutches of 2-3 eggs; within a few days, chicks are rarely fed and become independent quickly. they are considered vulnerable, with a population of less than 10,000 birds.

[nilgans]

bird (seagull) to bird (harrier) communication

[antiqueanimals]

Drawing Birds. Written and illustrated by Maurice Wilson. Published in 1965.

Internet Archive

[fjordfolk]

i never really liked the formulation that puppies and young dogs 'push boundaries' because i feel like it suggests a kind of intent i haven't seen in our dogs, and it kinda feeds into that adversarial relationship that some trainers have been shilling for decades where you're always expecting your dog to challenge your authority or whatever.

my nephew has a puppy rn, and they described it as 'throwing out behaviours and seeing what happens' which i liked a lot better?

because at least it doesn't suggest that this semi-sentient bag of bones and slop has a crystal clear picture of the laws of conduct and is hell-bent on testing them, and it doesn't suggest they already know exactly how their behaviour affects the world. they're just behaving. and learning.

[gotogull]

[besidethepath]

In this environment, you no longer understand your own screaming

[aevris]

fly with meeeee lesbian seagull

attack for @wytchwoods

[herpsandbirds]

Black Headed Gull (Chroicocephalus ridibundus) parent with chicks, family Sulidae, order Charadriiformes, England

photograph by David Wheatley

[myceliumelium]

I shudder to imagine what was going through Maedhros's head in the aftermath of Sirion. Nothing good, that's for sure. Anyway, a note on character design, (It's his hair, of course it's his hair, I have no self control) when i draw him, his hair is a strong indicator of his mental state. At this point, he's so far gone that he doesn't even give enough of a shit to cut it short any more (which I hc as an act of reclaiming in the wake of angband, controlling one of the very few things he still can about his appearance.) P.S. I spent way too long on this to tolerate tumblr quality, so please click on it and take a closer look!