Seagulls And Other S-Words

/ Diane Henders

Alert the medical community:  Stress suppresses the juvenile-humour centres of the brain!

The proof:  Last week I completely missed the opportunity to make a dirty joke about herring spawning.  Millions of fish were coming their little brains out, and all I did was remark on the pretty jade-green water caused by all that fish-spunk.

Good Lord.  After 50-odd (okay, extremely odd) years of childishness, I’d hate to grow up at this late date.  But now that I’ve realized I’m on the slippery slope toward maturity, at least I can step off and reconnect with my inner adolescent.

So… speaking of sea-sex:  I have suspicions about those frisky seals.  All that frolicking and barking seems a lot like the human equivalent of “Here, hold my beer and watch this!”  They’re definitely angling to impress the chicks.

The sea lions, on the other hand, are only thinking about stuffing themselves.  Sex, schmex.  Mating season isn’t until June or July for them, so this is all about the foodfest.  On calm mornings the ocean is crowded with clusters of twenty or thirty sea lions bobbing along, bulging bellies to the sky and languid flippers in the air.

Which leads me to my next suspicion…

Actually, never mind that.  It’s not a suspicion; it’s a certainty:  Those sea lions aren’t just pigging out.  After they’d been around for a few days, the water wasn’t jade-green anymore.  It was brownish.  And, um… pungent-ish.

With the sea lions polluting the water and the herring roe decomposing in malodorous drifts along the shore, I rerouted my daily walk a little farther inland and enjoyed the ocean view with the windows closed.  The route revision wasn’t much of a hardship, though, since I’d already altered my walking habits due to the millions of seagulls.  The beaches were white with them as far as the eye could see:

No, that’s not snow on the beach; it’s wall-to-wall gulls

It wasn’t so bad when they were on the ground, but if something startled them (say, some foolish human walking along the beach) they’d rise in a solid wall and shit-strafe the beach.

It’s like something out of Alfred Hitchcock.

According to folklore, it’s good luck if a bird scores a bullseye on you; but it’s unclear whether it’s good luck for the shittee or the shitter.  I’m inclined to think it’s the latter.  Especially if the shitter is a seagull.  All I’m gonna say is:  Seagulls are sick, sick birds.

Apparently eagles don’t like seagulls any better than I do.  It’s easy to tell when an eagle shows up:  The shit-hawks take flight en masse.

I’m pretty sure the eagles are just messing with the gulls – they’ll swoop in and land on the freshly vacated beach, and then just sit there.  They’re not hunting or fishing; they’re just hanging around like schoolyard bullies hogging the playground while the seagulls circle anxiously overhead. (No word on whether the eagles get shit-strafed, but they’re probably too cool to admit it if they do.)

So this weeks’s S-words are stress, spawn, shit-hawks, spunk, suspicions, slippery slopes, sexy seals, sleepy sea lions, sea-sex, sick seagulls, and shit-strafing.  And of course, a healthy dose of silliness.

‘Maturity’ just doesn’t suit the subject.

See…?

32 thoughts on “Seagulls And Other S-Words”

  1. Pingback: Whacking Off In All Directions | Diane Henders

  2. We watched a couple of divers in the water from the deck of a nice restaurant on pilings at Water’s Edge at Monterrey. They were all in dry suits the waiter said. And two or three layers of thermal underwear under that. And they stayed in no longer than fifteen minutes at a time. Working on, I think, a water line for the city.

    Remember, Mark Twain said the coldest winter he ever spent was San Francisco in the summer. 😜

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    • Brrrr! Scuba diving has never really appealed to me – as soon as that mask grips my nose I’m all, “Get it off me!” But I did have a lovely time many years ago when I borrowed a dry suit and went bobbing in the surf at Lawrencetown beach in Nova Scotia in April. Water temperature that day was just above freezing and the dry suit was lovely and warm… but one wave lapped over my face and I thought my brain was going to explode from the shock of the cold. I can see why people rarely survive shipwrecks – after a few seconds in water that cold it would be all over. I prefer to enjoy diving from a comfy chair on a big screen… preferably with beer in hand.

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  3. Seagulls? I hearken back to “Finding Nemo.” Rats with wings. And their calls were translated from bird into people as, “Mine! Mine! Mine…!” Kinda makes sense.

    I’m guessing the water around where you are now shouldn’t be my first choice in places to learn to scuba dive. Yes? 🙂

    And look at you go!! Nudging ninety perthent! You tho rock, thithta!

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    • Thankth! It’th been tough to thqueethe in writing time, but I’m gittin’ there.

      And you’re right; I doubt if scuba diving would be enjoyable just now. Maybe you should try Corpus Christi – it’s closer and the water’s warmer, isn’t it? (Although I recall a certain family trip many decades ago when the water was so cold at Corpus Christi that my little legs were bright red. I don’t remember it, being only about 2 at the time; but photos don’t lie. (And yes, they were actual colour photos taken with a Starmite camera with built-in flash. Pretty uptown all those years ago.) 😉

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      • The coldest water I’ve ever subjected myself to was in a mountain stream up past timberline in Colorado. So cold it was just BARELY not still ice. The next coldest was in the ocean near Monterrey, California, in the middle of summer.

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        • I dunno about the ocean near California, but I’m right there shivering beside you at the mountain stream. There are so many glacier-fed streams and lakes in the Rockies – the only reason they’re not frozen solid is they’re moving too fast. But if you stick a hand (or worse, some other body part) in, it’ll get flash-frozen. Brrr!

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  6. Who needs maturity anyhow, Diane? I’m all for silliness me. I wonder if it’s considered really, extremely, fantabulously lucky if multiple seagulls ‘spread their luck’ all over one unsuspecting passer-by? I think about a million of them did it to my car once. And there must be something in the water. The ducks near me are somewhat frisky at the moment as well…

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    • Hmmm, you’re right; it must be something in the water! And if your theory about multiple seagulls is correct, my car should be lucky for the rest of its life. It was covered with white splatters from nose to tail.

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  7. I became a mature adult once a long time ago, but it just wasn’t me. I can still do it on the rare occasions where it may be necessary, but it’s an unhealthy way to live.
    With all these sea gulls and eagles was anyone on the beach walking a beagle? Potential poetry abounds.

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    • Oh, you’re brilliant! Thanks for my first belly laugh of the day! Believe it or not, I did actually meet a guy walking a beagle one day.

      But I dunno; considering all the eagle-protecting regulations… would it be legal to walk a beagle near a seagull-hunting eagle…?

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  11. shit-strafing – Is that the poop bombs of the seagulls at the beach ? Those stupid A-holes from New Jersey or Indiana think it’s so cute feeding the pigeons and gulls giving the birds an endless supply of raw material to manufacture more ammunition. They should all be banned from the beach. Birds AND people.

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  12. Nature is so messy at times! And I thought it was bad just to smell the seaweed rotting on the beach … It sounds like you’re going to have the best of all worlds – a home in a beautiful wooded setting but easy access to the beach when it’s not being a petri dish 🙂

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    • Exactly! I’ve been too busy to get down to the shore for the past week, what with moving (and now getting ready to move out again at the end of the week), but I’m hoping to have some time to check in at the ocean today. There’s something about the steady roll of the waves that just washes my worries away. It’s like listening to the heartbeat of the earth. Ahhhh… 🙂

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  13. Wow I had no idea that there is a downside to an ocean beach. Ewww! I guess with all the beauty and teeming life you get decay, sea lion shit, and wall to wall seagull guano. I’m sure a measure of balance is due to return shortly.

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    • Yes, it’s been fascinating to watch. The water was crystal clear and fresh-smelling before the herring run; then it turned cloudy and jade-green; then brown and stinky. We’ve had to move away from the coast (and will soon have to move out of our current digs, too; sigh) so I haven’t been able to walk daily and check on the ocean’s progress. Last I looked, the smell was fresher and the seaweed was growing vigorously, so all that high-quality fertilizer is doing its job! I think the sea lions have moved on now – must get back to the coast soon and see (in all my spare time, ha).

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