On the Wing #30: Gull Appreciation Week
I know most people see them as walking, swimming, and flying terrors out to steal your chips and ice cream, but I like gulls for two reasons. One reason is that their almost ubiquitous presence along our shores seems almost miraculous today because of the ways they were nearly eradicated up to 150 years ago. The adults were hunted for their feathers and wings to adorn the hats of fashionable society ladies in the mid to late 1800s, while the eggs were collected from their offshore colonies for fine diners in New York, Boston, and Pittsburgh. Thankfully the slaughter was stopped by the Audubon Society and other concerned citizens and today they are one of our most ubiquitous citizens along our shores, lakes, and beaches. The second reason I have taken a shine to them is that because of their common presence around the parking lot where I now sit (and wait for hunters to hopefully come in and allow me to survey them on their success at hunting Oldsquaws. Yeah birding community, I just we...