I posted this in July 2006 . Since then the seagulls have got still more arrogant, the red kites wheel and mew in every sky, the crows and pigeons and magpies make love and war our fence-tops. You need only look out the window.
And what is it with the magpies—and rats? Has the coronavirus affected their lifestyles?
Here’s what I wrote then:
I went out at 7 this overcast morning to buy fresh lemons for pancakes, passing the Bethany Gospel Hall (1) on the way back. There’s usually a lone seagull perching on the roof, over the main door, like the guardian angel of this chapel. Why here? Does it defend the perch from rival birds? What makes seagulls come and live in this inland town, about eighty miles from the sea? As I pondered and stared, the bird flew off in loud agitation over the neighbouring rooftops. Assuming it had gone about its business I let my thoughts drift elsewhere.
Then it started dive-bombing, with me as its target. (2) It swooped low from out of the sky until its beak was aimed at a spot between my eyes. Then it swung back up again, passing three feet above my head. It must have swooped with this deadly accuracy twelve to fifteen times, as I stood transfixed: amazed but not scared. At the end of each swoop, high above the Victorian chimneypots and the engineering works, it looked over its shoulder and with a kind of backflip turned around to swoop again, each time a little closer. As soon as I walked on, it stopped buzzing me.
What is it with me and animals? Once when Karleen & I were walking through a field of teenage bulls, one of them stared insolently at me so I stared back. (3) Actually I am not sure which of us started it, but the challenge was obvious. Neither of us moved, and we did not take our eyes off one another. The other young bulls stopped munching grass, and even the ones engaged in their own face-off games eventually stopped to watch this interesting inter-species contest. It was my plan to walk slowly closer and show K that I was the braver of the two, but she would not let me. The next time we entered the field, I wanted to go closer to see if the same bull remembered me, but she took my arm and said “Come along now”.
The seagull this morning was determined but not angry. I know this for a fact. As a foolish young beatnik, about 43 years ago, whilst camping near St Ives in Cornwall, I had taken a seagull’s egg to fry for breakfast. The mother bird swooped till its beak was within an inch of my face. It meant business, and its family were after me too. Panicking, I stumbled on a slippery rock, dropped the egg and ran for my life. It cannot be the same bird, surely?
(2) Or was it revenge for my sins against the Gospels?
And now it’s been magpies and rats.
(1) The Bethany Gospel Hall has now been taken over by Seventh Day Adventists, mostly African, who greet me with smiles when I pass by on a Saturday. Seagulls no longer perch on its roof.
(2) No, it had nothing to do with apostasy, I was never a Christian in the first place. The gulls have moved to the roof of the student flats on Brook Street, where they made an awful fuss whoever went down it when somehow a fledgling found itself on the sidewalk. For the next few days they started up whenever we approached and we left them to it. We thought everything was clear, but there have been feathers scattered around for several days. Today, more than a week later, I thought they’d settled down but I was dive-bombed again this morning. They come down low and go straight for your eyes. The only remedy is to look away.
One day, Karleen & I walked near Hughenden Church, near the site of the stand-off described above. Our path led through a meadow where two dozen young bulls grazed. They all saw us coming but most edged away to avoid any confrontation; all except one who just glared, with slightly lowered head, and stood in our path some distance away. We left the path, wandered under scattered oak trees, keeping an eye on this bull, who also kept an eye on us. Then we turned back the way we came. I heard heavy steps behind me. Ignoring Karleen, the bull lowered his hornless head and made as if to toss me, from behind, letting me feel his strength and weight, putting me off balance but not hard enough to bruise. We heeded, walked back to the car hastily but with measured steps. When we were far enough away, I looked back. He was still glaring. As with the seagulls, the only remedy is to look away.
a wayfarer’s notes 
staring is an expression of predatory threat and of dominance.it's polite, with your local cat or dog for instance, to blink elaborately and glance away when you are with them, and not to stare too directly. Think about how predators stalk and stare, never blinking or taking their eyes off of their prey. Just as well you didn't challenge the bull further. If he'd felt threatened enough he would have almost certainly attacked, figuring that you were stalking him for dinner. The others may have gotten in the game as well and followed him into battle to “stomp the lion.” You can use this to approach deer and other similar wild animals. Don't stare, don't walk in either a direct line or circle, and sometimes you can meander quite close if you look disinterested enough. As for the seagull – the recent one – my guess is that she has a nest. Many birds will attack to protect a nest. I recently read that the seagull flocking and attack behavior that prompted Hitchcock to write “the birds” was probably caused by a particular kind of poisoning….I've forgotten what it was…..
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my cat and I were very close. Often when we were sitting quietly together in the evening she would be gazing not-quite-at me, and I would try to do the same with her, without staring at her full on. If I stared full on, she would gradually become uncomfortable and become very alert. If I made an elaborate show of yawning and blinking she would sink into a deep, drowsy and companionable state. Responding to stares seems to be behavior thats close to hard-wired – even with a thoroughly domesticated cat.
The seagull may have been responding to the stare too. Thinking about it, while they aren't subject to lions and wolves, they are predated (or their nests are) by foxes and cats, which hunt the same way, with the same fixed stare.
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Hayden, you are the animal lover, I know you must be right. It had not occurred to me that animals “read” us in these ways. I recall once looking at a mother blackbird (turdus merula) on our garden wall. It had a worm in its mouth and wanted to feed its young. Until I looked away it did not go to the nest, and even then by a roundabout route.
As for the seagull, I'm sure you're right, as I researched it this morning. They also behave in this way if one of their young has fallen from the nest. Oh, well, goodbye to the more fanciful explanations!
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alas, I didn't mean to stomp on your more interesting explanations. I've just found it a handy bit of information to use when I want to get close to a critter. (this is also something to keep in mind with some dogs we perceive as dangerous – often they bark and growl because they are afraid, and if we respond by staring we can frighten them into attacking.)
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Regardless, it is a very funny story, lol. Very funny, like the bird probably remembers you from the collective unconscious, it is not the same bird, but so what!
Also, birds are projections, mental projections, of fish in the water, so you are wading in two pools here, you are messing with a much larger creature than you think. Didn't know that did you?
Birds are the outside, fish are the inside intelligence body of a 'presence' which is in full communication. New info.
BTW, the basic 'human' is likewise such to the 'animals'. Hah! One creature.
The Human gets a 'twist' tho.
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Now I don't know whether to believe Hayden's common-sense explanations, with which my reason concurs, or Jim's mystical musings, which appeal to my soul.
What a dilemma! I see in a flash the whole purpose of “belief” in human life, belief, which is one of those things missing in the more pragmatic or instinctual animal species. It is nothing more nor less than a shield and guide to keep us safe, whether from attacking birds or from sin, which is that which angers and distresses the greater being, the Goddess Gaia, the greater being within whose body we are merely cells.
I hold by my previous assertion – or perhaps I never said it before – that beliefs are metaphors, with which to construct the poetry of our existence.
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“beliefs are metaphors, with which to construct the poetry of our existence.”
I love that phrase – because it's beautiful, but also because it encourages my patience around beliefs that seem so alien to my own. Like the belief structures of roughly 90% of the planet, LOL!
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