Is It A Plane?

[poliphilo]

I could hear an airliner- and thought I'd spotted it- and then the white cruciform object veered away from its forward course in a tight curve- and I realised it was a gull.

I wonder why gulls venture so far inland. Ailz suggests it's for the rubbish dumps but if it's food they're after why would they fly so high? I like to think its for the pure existential pleasure of being up there, riding the thermals.

Comments

[cmcmck]

We get 'em here and we're as far from the sea as it's possible to be in the UK! They like investigating field crops and field edges.

Ever read 'Jonathan Livingstone Seagull'?

[poliphilo]

I remember it having a vogue, but I never read it.

[shewhomust]

I don't think anywhere in Britain is all that far inland, to a gull!

[poliphilo]

We're about 25 miles from the south coast- probably less as the gull flies.

[oakmouse]

We used to get them in Spokane ocasionally when I was a kid --- about 300 miles from the nearest coast. Usually seeing them meant a big storm within the next 24 hours, out of the west or southwest. They always seemed quite happy and contented, never tired or sick or wounded or anything like that. I think you're right that they probably come inland for the sheer pleasure of a good long flight.

[poliphilo]

We're about 25 miles from the coast. I imagine the gulls will be able to see the sea from the height at which they're flying.