Seagulls and Crows
A Colony and a Murder
I’m watching a number of seagulls wheeling in the sky off in the distance. The sky is a brilliant blue, and the clouds have personality. By personality, I mean they are puffy, fluffy clouds that lend themselves to different shapes. Remember how you would lay on your back with your friend and gaze up at the sky, saying, “Oh, look! That one looks like an elephant!” A minute later, because of the breeze, it would morph into a different shape and now, in its transformation, would resemble a piece of the pie.
That’s the kind of sky we have. The gulls are wheeling around, almost like vultures would move upon a carcass. Light flashes off of the undersides of their wings. The gulls are more interested in food. They might be over the Safeway store down the road. Perhaps there is a pumpkin on the ground. Whatever it is, they are interested — wheeling around in the sky.
Oh, how I wish I could move like that. How would the air smell up that high? I’ll bet it is cold, and I’ll bet it is fresh. You are closer to the edge of the atmosphere, though not by much.
Seagulls tend to fly about 50 feet off the ground. Fifty feet is the equivalent of a five-story building. They settle into whatever thermal updraft catches their fancy. According to what the US and Russia agreed upon 40 years ago, outer space begins at 50 miles above the surface of the earth. NASA considers anybody who has flown above 50 miles an astronaut. But I am talking about a seagull. Ah, the clouds have changed, and I no longer see the gulls in the distance. Now, I see a number of crows on the telephone wires outside of my window.
The other day, before our landlord stopped by to pick the persimmons, that murder of crows had discovered the fruit. Only two birds at a time would sit in the tree eating fruit, but the rest of the crowd circled and dive-bombed whoever was in residence in the tree having lunch. It was pretty amazing to see.
One of the books I read as a teenager was Jonathon Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach. It’s an allegorical tale about a seagull who finds his own voice. It was an important book for me, but I didn’t realize how important until years later. It was published in 1970, a good 54 years ago. I would have read it about then. I think I’ll read it again.
Groups of people are called all sorts of things. If you gather together to practice your religion, you might be called a parish or a congregation. If you all read books, you might be a part of a book club. If you are a part of a group that plays sports together, you might be on a team. Animals have groups, too. For cats, it is a clowder. For dogs, it is a pack. It is a herd of horses or cows. Birds also belong to different groups or families — a murder of crows or a colony of seagulls.
We belong together, all of us in a group beyond the definitions of each other’s species. I wonder what that is called? Could it be love? Could we call us simply love? The before. The now, the after, and the to come.
Thanks for reading.