A Most Adaptable Seabird.

April Six Word Photo Story Challenge: “Graffiti & Street Art”

No herrings for me. Chips only!

I’m not sure when the mosaic herring gull arrived on the Promenade. There used to be an old dingy on the spot, used as a flower bed. Atop its mast was a small wooden gull which turned in the breeze — until one night some inebriated soul stole it.

No one is going to steal the current occupier. It stands five feet high and has a calming aspect that makes grandparents lift toddlers to pat its solid head or sit them astride its back for a souvenir photograph.

No one in their right mind would attempt to do either to one of its smaller, more agile cousins. Small is relative. European herring gulls have a wingspan of up to five feet, and that yellow beak is built for scavenging — anything from roadkill to fat-balls hanging in gardens for over-wintering song-birds.

Along our coast, the herring shoals have long since been depleted, but the gulls have adapted.

Their pièce de résistance is to await an unsuspecting tourist leaving a fast-food outlet with an open polystyrene dish of that most British of delicacies, Fish & Chips. The gulls launch from their roof-top perch, where they have been sitting in near silence, do a short circuit to create airlift, and then hurtle down behind the unsuspecting target in full-throated scream to thump an arm with a wing in passing. Chips jump from the jolted plate and the following screaming gulls snatch their prizes mid-air and make off — sometimes complete with a big piece of battered cod.

Eat al fresco at your peril!

Thanks to Mary Chang Story Writer for the publication, and do check out these writers for wheeling stories to make you smile: Dennett, Elin Melaas, Penny Grubb, Ellie Jacobson, Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles, and Susan Alison.

Read more stories from Linda Acaster.