Never say seagull

Ring-billed Gull 

At the 13th annual Kachemak Bay Shorebird Festival (in Homer, Alaska) last year I came away learning one thing. Don't ever call a gull a seagull. It just isn't done, if you call yourself any kind of birder that is. I'm not really a birder but I try to fake like I'm one.

If you have your crayons out, there's a Ring-billed Gull coloring page at Enchanted Learning.

This gull liked to pose. I talked to him softly and he listened and listened, seemingly intently. I told him how purty he was, and what a fine beak he had, and I complimented him on his fine yellow legs. Well it was all an attempt to get closer but, drats, he flew off. The sunset shone lovely on the water though.

I talked today with a lady from Santa Fe. She looked very Santa Feish with long grey, braided tresses, small build, simply dressed, very connected to the earth, a conservationist. She rented out her house and is traveling in a really cute trailer. It was from her that I got the idea to talk to the gull. I'm not much of a talker and I don't usually talk to birds. But she talked to a roadrunner today and the roadrunner approached her, then turned and ran inside her trailer! My son told me about it and we rode our bikes up, me with camera in hand. But she had picked him up and taken him out of her trailer already. He was climbing up her screens and of course she couldn't let him do that. She came from Germany about 30 years ago and said there's no camping in Germany like ours in the U.S.A. She said if you do camp in Germany you are packed in rows like sardines. That's no good, is it.