Competition Winners
1st Prize
Bird Brained – Jill Palmer
I’ve enjoyed this life in Bognor. Other gulls, like my partner George, grumble about all the humans here, but I love it!
I hatched on the roof of a school in North Bersted and could watch the small humans lumbering around below. I liked it there so much that now we nest there each year.
I find the small humans the most fun to watch and the easiest to entertain. Often, if I put on a flying display for the little humans, they will start clomping around, their fleshy arms outstretched pretending that they can fly too. They are so funny!
I must admit that I do enjoy the attention of humans, much to George’s disdain. Although, it has to be said, he takes little persuasion to get into mock fight over a crisp packet if there are a crowd of humans with food watching. Especially if they throw us some.
We are herring gulls, although I’ve rarely eaten a herring. There’s plenty of food around here, on the shore, in the fields, in the bins in town. When we’re nesting George sometimes turns up with the most crazy things! Pies, cakes and sandwiches. That’s when I know he’s been hanging about outside Tesco, sitting on a car roof waiting for humans to come out holding something interesting.
I’m not sure I agree with that, I don’t really like to steal food from humans if I think it will upset them. George doesn’t care.
Of course, there is a certain skill and joy to be had from swooping down and snatching food from their hands, I don’t deny that, but George can be a bit mean sometimes. I’ve seen him take an ice cream from a small human’s hand and make it wail like the loudest of gulls. He doesn’t even like ice cream!
I wouldn’t do that, even if they do always hold the cones out in front of them enticingly. I will always choose a group of humans that I think will find it funny. I glide down, timing it just right to snatch a chip or something from their fingers then land nearby and eat it in front of them. After the initial shock they will often laugh at me and throw me more chips. It works out well all round!
My favourite ones are the ones on holiday. I watch them come out of the train station pulling their suitcases, heading for Butlins. You can see the joy on their strange, round faces at all the new sights and smells and they almost always love to see me.
There’s a chimney on the roof of the Picturedrome where I like to sit to see them arrive, (I avoid the station roof because the pigeons hang out there – they’re very cliquey and won’t talk to me) and when I see a group with some small humans I’ll soar down and glide in circles above them, lifting and dipping with the air currents. Often they’ll point and shout, excited to see me. As if they’ve never seen a gull before. And maybe some of them haven’t.
Whilst George has been a good partner we do disagree on our attitude to the humans. I think they are cute and funny and like seeing them around, George sees them as vermin. He says I shouldn’t encourage them as they don’t deserve my attention and I suppose he has a point.
We know everything, you see. Each time we are reborn our spirit brings with it the past, present and future. We hatch infused with the knowledge of the first gull to the last and embody an understanding of the meaning of existence far beyond the reach of a puny human mind.`
We know we were here long before the humans and will be here long after they are gone. In the grand scheme of things, their presence is just the flap of a wing.
George says, ‘You know what they do, you know they systematically destroy the earth and ultimately themselves, leaving a polluted wasteland, eliminating hoards of other species along with themselves. How can you possibly clown around for their entertainment?’
But I say, ‘They’re just dumb humans! They follow their instincts and don’t know what they’re doing. Look at them. Do you think they would be throwing their rubbish on the beach, spending their time buying ridiculous trinkets, ruining the land by building their structures and driving around in their smoke belching cars if they had any idea what harm they were doing? Of course not! If I want to give them a bit of pleasure and make them smile in the short time they are here I will.’
And George always replies, ‘Well, I will carry on shitting* on their heads.’
*Author’s note – feel free to substitute ‘pooping’ for a family audience.