Just how smart are the shagging seagulls getting?
This is a frequently asked question around these here parts, where the sea bites the land and where, in summer months, expectant folk tumble from hot trains to buy bubble-icious ice-cream cones and boxes of scampi ‘n’ chips.
Stand still long enough to observe the birds at work and you too may find yourself pondering the same poser.
I’ve been hanging around under the generous sun recently, tying up my horse outside the saloon and watching from under my stetson, baccy juices dribbling down my hirsute chin, as the winged corner boys blatantly and continuously assault hungry day-trippers.
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The birds seem to favour operating in gangs of three. One gull swoops in over, say, a chip-eater’s right shoulder, causing the eater to pull their food away to the left, where the other two are poised to zoom in and deftly swipe the contents of the panicked victim’s snack box. The gulls’ choreography is perfect; it works every time.
Seems to me these gimlet-eyed, opportunistic scavengers are not just getting smarter, they’re becoming alarmingly strategic. I’m seriously thinking of approaching them for some investment advice.
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Dipping and whirling around the promenade with large chunks of other people’s dinner in their maws, they appear, furthermore, to have no fear whatsoever of humans or dogs. Yappy, officious little pooches with tutus and bows in their hair, trotting along after their owners, and even lumbering great Labradors, panting along in neckerchiefs, seem to pose no threat at all to the gulls. Indeed, from the birds’ perspective, the bowlers may well look like four-legged hors d’oeuvres.
It’s the tourists I feel sorry for. Lulled by the music of clanking masts in the marina and lilting buskers on the pier, their senses stunned by fumes from vinegar-soaked singles, not to mention the disorientating prices of their hotels, they seem genuinely appalled when a pink-legged marauder swipes down out of the too-blue sky and makes off with a tenner’s worth of crispy haddock in its beak. (Mind you, if they think that’s bad, just wait until they’re asked to part with more than eight quid for a late-night pint in Temple Bar.)
But nope, I’m not going to be diverted down the rip-off-Republic road again (although it’s tempting); I’m going to talk some more about seagulls.
For starters, seagulls, much like cats and columnists, are well versed in adapting their behaviour to benefit from the presence of humans. A while ago, a pal, engaged in reading an entire book about them, told me that seagulls no longer bother to raid Essex council dumps on Sundays, because they know the dumps are shut. Apparently, or so he’d read, bank holidays confuse them, though given the exponential growth rate of their intelligence – from stomping up and down on dry ground to imitate the sound of rain, thereby catching a couple of worms, to intuiting the calendar, they’ll sooner or later be googling the holiday opening hours.
Seagulls also have two distinctive physiological advantages that many a gregarious resident of a seaside community might envy, namely hollow legs and the ability to drink seawater. The birds are also designed to weep salt tears through their nostrils. Mind you, I’ve seen similar behaviour among lugubrious humans at closing time.
I read that the birds can live into their 20s, that it’s dangerous to wave your arms at them if attacked (I couldn’t find an explanation why) and also that they can recognise faces, although this may be apocryphal.
I also discovered that they prefer their sole cooked in butter and their cod deep-fried but that they cannot bloody stand a watery chowder. I saw one the other day doing the crossword. Two others are thinking of opening a mobile frappuccino van using vegan milk from sustainable sources. Three of them are representing Ireland at the next Eurovision.
“Seagulls are very, very intelligent,” I told our new small, black, sweet and not notably bright cat. She looked at me with her pink tongue peeping out from her tiny mouth. The word gormless sprang, unbidden, to mind. I read that cats know each other’s names; I’m glad of this, as I’m not terribly sure this one knows her own.
“Seagull,” I said to her, pointing at a bird filing its nails on the garden wall. “Seagull! Scary. Soon to rule your world.”