web analytics

My new best friend

Meet my new bestest friend, Denty the Brain Damaged Herring Gull. I tried to get a closer picture, but he was being coy tonight.

Uncle B named him Denty, on account of he has a pink featherless dent right between his eyes. It’s like if his head was made of clay and you gave him a good poke with your index finger, like that.

Pretty clearly, somebody got off a damn good shot at him (as people around here will do) and he survived. He’s loopy as a bastard, though.

Of an afternoon, he (I guess it’s a he) lands at the peak of the roof, and then slides down the tiles sideways, surfer-like. Usually pretty skillfully on his feet, but occasionally on his butt. Our roof is l-o-o-o-ng. Then I flip pieces of stale bread into the grass for him and he stalks around stabbing them with his beak.

The chickens are afraid of him, the cat is fascinated. And me, I grew up a thousand miles from the sea, so I don’t have the coastal person’s native disgust for gulls. I think he’s pretty cool.

For a brain damaged flying rat.

Comments


Comment from Argentium G. Tiger
Time: July 25, 2012, 11:17 pm

For some reason, I’m remembering the scenes out of “Watership Down” with Kehar, the seagull.

“Stooooopid Bunnies!” *laughs*


Comment from Armybrat
Time: July 25, 2012, 11:22 pm

“white rats with wings” as compared with their city cousin, the pigeon who is known in our house as the “rats with wings.”. Squirles are known as “rats with good PR.”


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: July 25, 2012, 11:50 pm

Thank you, Stoaty, I giggled helplessly. Which I needed this week. Then, of course, I felt terrible for laughing at the disabled. . .

Have you ever noticed how /complicated/ life is?


Comment from JeffS
Time: July 26, 2012, 12:35 am

Longtime coastal residents loathe flocks of gulls. Especially when they fly over in flocks, screeching like a dysfunctional church choir, crapping all the way. It’s like they have permanent diarrhea. Nothing is spared: cars, houses, drying clothes, people, sidewalks, pets, gardens. Pigeons have nothing on those freakishly fertilizing fowls.

I suspect that if their creepy cacophony is ever translated, it would come out something like, “Behold our awesome crapping power, puny humans!”

Individually, gulls can be entertaining. One pier along the Seattle waterfront has eateries, including a regional fast food joint known as “Skippers”. Oddly enough, they serve sea food, mostly variations on fish ‘n’ chips. Good stuff, but I order extra fries whenever I eat there, so I can sit outside and feed the gulls. They’re quite adept at grabbing food in mid-air, and brief arguments over a contested morsel are frequent. And if you’re not quick enough in flinging fries, you’ll get scolded by the ungrateful wretches.

Once full, they fly off to scatter their scat over another portion of the human race. They have enough decency not to crap on their own dinner plate.


Comment from Oldcat
Time: July 26, 2012, 1:00 am

Once full, they fly off to scatter their scat over another portion of the human race. They have enough decency not to crap on their own dinner plate.

….this puts them a leg up on liberals.


Comment from Bob Mulroy
Time: July 26, 2012, 1:14 am

Whenever we;re on the water or at the coast, and we see gulls earning an honest living, we always commend them.

On Heceta, there’s a group of them who just work the surf for sand fleas, fry and whatever all day.

Up in Newport, on the Yaquina bay there’s a flock that’s learned to catch butter clams and go drop them in the parking lot of OSU’s Marine Research Center. They’ve also learned to miss the cars. When they used to hit the cars, the clam didn’t break, and they had to try again.

The cars usually broke a little so the Scientists left one quadrant of the lot empty, and the gulls learned to use that part.


Comment from Scubafreak
Time: July 26, 2012, 1:57 am

@JeffS – You don’t have to be on the coast to be fed up with Sea Gulls. We get flocks of them in Colorado now and then (I know, go figure) clogging up every stream and pond in site, crapping everywhere, and generally making a nuisance of themselves….


Comment from Armybrat
Time: July 26, 2012, 2:28 am

@Bob Mulroy-hubby and I get a kick out of watching the white rats with wings hover and drop the mussels to break the shells. Not so funny when you’re trying to walk across an expanse of pavement in the am and you’re dodging the drops!


Comment from Redd
Time: July 26, 2012, 2:58 am

What does Seagull taste like?


Comment from Mike James
Time: July 26, 2012, 3:24 am

“I think he’s pretty cool.”

Cool? Are you nuts? You won’t think gulls are cool when they start dicking around with your hens. You won’t think they’re cool when you come outside one morning and Denty and five hundred of his friends are sitting on all the branches, telephone lines, and the monkey bars making no noise, just watching you, thinking how much you resemble Tippi Hedren.

Have another look at the frightening image you yourself posted at the top of the page, god that gives me the creeps … I just hope Uncle B’s ready to be Rod Taylor.


Comment from Redd
Time: July 26, 2012, 3:30 am

Just hope it doesn’t end up like THIS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-HYj5cLfEI

PRO tip: Wear goggles, they like to peck out eyes.


Comment from QuasiModo
Time: July 26, 2012, 4:14 am

Birdie num-nums


Comment from gulliblepratt
Time: July 26, 2012, 6:51 am

I think I see a use for that sling shot in the previous post!


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: July 26, 2012, 8:39 pm

Mike is pretty much on target. Here in the UK gulls are a serious pest in seaside towns, ripping open rubbish sacks, stealing food, crapping everywhere and – yes – even getting seriously aggressive with humans and small domestic animals.

I don’t think they’d try it on with a weasel though. Lord knows I wouldn’t 😉


Comment from Sigivald
Time: July 26, 2012, 8:54 pm

And me, I grew up a thousand miles from the sea, so I don’t have the coastal person’s native disgust for gulls. I think he’s pretty cool.

I grew up in Salt Lake City, a long ways from the sea, and I also hate the horrible little bastards – because they’re the Utah state bird and horribly abundant there.


Comment from David Gillies
Time: July 26, 2012, 10:26 pm

I used to quite like watching the gulls down by Ryde beach when I was a kid. They were never much of a problem. As for the noise, when you’ve lived in the tropics, UK wildlife is practically silent. You should hear what 2,000 parakeets roosting outside your window sounds like. And I have 3″ geckos that can wake you from a sound sleep with their shrieking.

Write a comment

(as if I cared)

(yeah. I'm going to write)

(oooo! you have a website?)


Beware: more than one link in a comment is apt to earn you a trip to the spam filter, where you will remain -- cold, frightened and alone -- until I remember to clean the trap. But, hey, without Akismet, we'd be up to our asses in...well, ass porn, mostly.


<< carry me back to ol' virginny