gull portrait

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7.10.16 ~ my gull friend

You do not ask a tame seagull why it needs to disappear from time to time toward the open sea. It goes, that’s all, and it is as simple as a ray of sunshine, as normal as the blue of the sky.
~ Bernard Moitessier
(The Long Way)

Now that our son and daughter-in-law have returned home to Georgia our house is so very quiet… Yesterday for lunch we went to the beach. The weather was cool and damp and there were very few people there. I wasn’t the only one wearing a sweatshirt. At first we didn’t see our friendly gull.

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7.10.16 ~ there was a crow raising quite a ruckus, all by himself,
leaving us wondering what all the fuss was about
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7.10.16 ~ a mother Canada goose swam by with two children
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7.10.16 ~ gull monitoring Long Island Sound from the rooftop

Disappointed that we hadn’t seen our friend, we started to walk back to our car and then we saw him, standing on the sidewalk, almost as if he was waiting for us. He was quiet – no vocalizations this day.

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So I got down on the grass and talked to him for a while. He sat down and allowed me to get closer than ever before. This time I had my camera!

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After getting the picture above I pressed my luck and got the portrait at the top of this post. What a thrill! Somehow he knows we can be trusted. But again, he seems old and tired. I wonder if we will ever see him standing on one of the white posts this summer. Maybe those days are over. We’ll see…

10 thoughts on “gull portrait”

    1. Thank you, Rosie. I haven’t seen the gull since that day. Wondering if he went back up the river for food.

    1. Thank you, Sybil. They don’t want people to wade there because there is no safe way to climb down there. I thought perhaps the crow was trying to point out that the “i” was missing in “this.” πŸ™‚

  1. loved your photo shares Barbara, keep us posted on your gull friend…hope he keeps appearing, you have a bond for sure πŸ™‚

    1. Thank you, Tai. I will let you know if/when I see him again. So far I’ve only seen him twice this summer which has me a little concerned. Maybe he was saying farewell…

    1. I hope he is making it, too, but I still haven’t seen him. I’ll never forget him – I’ve known him for five years…

  2. Reminds me of a fellow I saw last Saturday. He was almost hidden the the rocks, and let us get so close I was afraid he was injured. When he flew away – annoyed, no doubt that we had rousted him out of his rest – I was quite relieved!

    1. I’m so glad your gull was not injured, but resting quietly. Better that he flew off annoyed than having need of an intervention. Sometimes I wish I could read their minds and find out what they make of our curiosity. πŸ™‚

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