"Just Gulls"

acrylic on canvas, museum wrap, 30" x 40"

Gulls are much maligned creatures. I have always rather liked them for the very characteristics that give them such a bad reputation. They are bossy, aggressive, loud, raucous. They have 'attitude'. Sure, they do chase down all the other shorebirds in an attempt to steal whatever morsel they have found to eat. Bad manners all around. But all that aside, I like them. There is something about their shifty little eyes and suspicious natures that I find comical and amusing. Gulls are garrulous busy bodies. They are always interested in what is going on around them and are happiest if they are right in the middle of other people's business, whatever that may be. They will eat and steal practically anything that resembles food. Easily offended, they react the way the neighborhood battle ax does when she feels she has been insulted: they huff and puff around and strut or fly off complaining loudly. They make me smile. Just like the neighborhood gossip, every one's business is there own. We all know the type.

I also think there is a melancholy streak to gulls. Even though they do congregate in flocks, it is not uncommon to see them all alone floating out in the sea or standing quietly on the shoreline surveying the length of the beach.There is something arresting about that to me. Their solitary habit can be very moving, especially on cold grey days when the beach is bare of birds except for the lone gull waddling around quietly or silently staring out to sea. It would be easy to imagine they are thinking about how no one likes them very much. "Oh, it's just gulls", we say.

In the avian world gulls are very valuable, for they function in much the way crows do inland. They are highly observant, quick to sound the alarm and brave. Like the crows, they serve as sentries for all the other smaller birds close by. That's not to say they wouldn't eat the eggs or babies of those birds given the chance, but at least the other birds can rely on them to sound the alarm if any other predator comes close. Life as we know has a certain amount of trade offs. What also strikes me thinking about all of this, is how certain things in life get labeled as less than acceptable: occupations, school backgrounds, family connections, where a person lives or the kind of car they drive. Who gets to make those lists? I always feel there is a certain amount of scale balancing when the power goes out, or the plumbing backs up or the garbage collectors go on strike. It's more than a gentle reminder sometimes about how important, what we consider 'just gulls' are after all.