Rounding the Corner

I woke up on the island the other day and was heading down to grab some clothes and the breakfast items I had brought with me and along the way ended up having a great interaction with a western gull.

To set the scene: it's about 7 am, sun has risen, there's a bit of misty fog, and we're in the middle of the bay overlooking all of the spectacular sights you could wish to see and I am just drinking it in. To add to this, I figured I'd take the short cut down, which also happens to be one of the most beautiful ways to reach the bottom of the island.

So, I jump over the fence and head down the stairs into our historic gardens. Some of the gulls are out and about doing their morning routine. I descend two flights of stairs, head over the terrace, greet the gulls I see, and then approach the puppy steps, which is this big concrete staircase with decorative railings that was built during the military period. The stairs are about half the height of a normal staircase and about the right height for a western gull to travel up and down perfectly.

Just before I head down, I look out over the bay and catch a gull out of the corner of my eye who's heading up the stairs.

He had a hunk of nest material in his beak, and seemed to be traveling up the stairs in a bit of a sleepy fog. He had a task to complete, but didn't seem quite awake and so was mindlessly traveling up the stairs and not really paying attention to his surroundings. His other gull counterparts had taken to tipping their head up and looking at me out of one eye like they all do as I passed, but this guy, definitely seemed to be oblivious to the rest of the world.

I round the corner and am about to take a few steps down, guy with nest material keeps slowly heading up, I take a couple steps down, he heads up, and then finally realizes something is out of place. His head pops up, he sees me, and I swear a look of terror crosses his face and it mentally or maybe actually physically, is similar to that face you see on a person when you scare them to death.

Not knowing what to do, he turns around, and takes off running down the stairs, after about four or five, he remembers that he can fly, sticks out his wing, it gets caught in the staircase. He pops back a few inches, tucks his wings in, and keeps running for it and finally hits the base of the stairs, rounds the corners, and pops up onto the railing and takes off.

Meanwhile, I'm watching, first in horror at the wing incident and silently hoping that I do not have to perform a bird rescue at 7 AM, and then I'm dying in laughter and hilarity of our morning interaction. Laughter turns to wonder as I watch him fly off over the water silhouetted against the nearby big island across the water.

What a perfect place to be in the morning and what a wonderful opportunity to get a peak into the secret world of the western gull.