A Skydance Attired in Snow

The morning sun opens a dense curtain of fog over the water, revealing a dream of white wings, soaring, hovering, diving, chasing, stopping, and changing direction on a dime; the power and grace on display are enthralling. A new migrant has arrived from their breeding grounds in Canada and the Great Lakes, where they nest in colonies on islands.

The intricate social lives of these beautiful white birds inspired Nico Tinbergen to do a pioneering study on their behavior in the 1950s that changed animal research and ushered in a new era for studying animal behavior in the wild. He showed that the apparent chaos in these colonies was superficial. Underneath the noise and aggression were a complex language, cooperation, and caring parents who defended their young and other colony members.

These social birds recognize individual members of the colony and individual people. They do not respond to alarm calls from skittish birds as much as they do from alarm calls from trusted individuals. Up to six percent of the nests in a colony are comprised of female-to-female pairs. The great raucous mass of birds functions as one organism.

Few birds are as elegant as gulls in flight. There, by the grace of gulls, goes beauty beyond measure.

Ring-billed gull

In one of her essays, Mary Oliver captures the essence of gulls and the beauty of connecting with them, describing her experience caring for a gravely injured, greater black-backed gull.

“We kept within his reach a bowl of sand and another of water and began more nonsense – I would fling the water around with my finger, and he, again, would follow with that spirited beak, dashing the water from the bowl, making it fly and all directions. His eyes sparkled. We gave him a stuffed toy – a lion as it happened – and he would pick the lion’s red nose very gently, and lean against him while he slept.

He was, of course, a piece of the sky. His eyes said so. This is not fact, this is the other part of knowing something, when there is no proof, but neither is there any way toward disbelief. Imagine lifting the lid from a jar, and finding it filled not with darkness, but with light. Bird was like that. Startling, elegant, alive.”

Gulls are made of wind. Their calls emanate from the mist on an overcast winter morning. A cold north wind rushes across the water, pushing whitecaps across the lake. Canada geese visibly struggle to fly into the wind. Most birds seek shelter in secluded locations. The gulls are out foraging over open water, seemingly impervious to cold and wind. They are buoyant as a moth, cutting elegant arcs above the waves.

Small fish are the main attractant for gulls and other birds that compete for this food. Common mergansers dive and catch fish underwater, and when they emerge with a fish in their bill, it incites competition. Other mergansers, gulls, crows, white pelicans, and eagles are all watching.

The gulls hover over the mergansers, waiting for them to drop the fish; the crows perch nearby and watch as pelicans and eagles survey the scene.

Mergansers occasionally drop a fish and swim away from it. I get the distinct impression that they are well-fed. The gulls show no such restraint. Multiple gulls dive down to grab the fish, which often passes between birds until one swallows it as the others clamor for position.

All of this activity attracts the attention of a pelican floating nearby. She races across the water and scatters the other birds as she quickly scoops up the fish.

When the gulls get chased away, they rise with a subtle lift and a whirlwind of white swirls and merge with the clouds. They rise into the sky and gradually fade from sight. An animate wind in its element. They are now at home and reside as a galaxy of gulls that you can see twinkling in the night sky.

I walk down a trail in search of more gulls. When I turn a corner, I am exposed to the full force of the wind, and I lean forward as I walk into the gale. I look up and watch gulls float by, going with and into the wind with ease and grace. The elemental calls vivify the winter grey; a black and white wind soars through the landscape. Somehow, the gulls remain still in strong winds that push me and other birds around. Watching them float by, I can see them constantly make small, subtle adjustments to their wings and tails. They appear to be entirely at ease. One gull comes closer than the others; he observes me with a mix of curiosity and indifference inherent in a being that possesses the calm regard of the ages.

I pause and wonder what it must feel like to be a gull. To ride the wind across continents and oceans. I expand myself and sense the world from their point of view.

Gulls are like a ballerina or an Olympic gymnast, perfectly in tune with their bodies. They are going about their lives the way they have for millions of years, as an embodiment of elegance, beauty, grace, and vulgarity. This improbable mix of traits makes them a lot like us. That may be why we have a hard time appreciating them. It is hard to take an honest look in the mirror.

People and gulls are adaptable versions of life. We both thrive by being flexible and eating a wide variety of food. Every organism feeds on other organisms and takes in life that it, in turn, passes on to other organisms. Gulls are a totem of our time. They give us an impetus to look honestly at ourselves and embrace the dance between light and dark.

Hands shading eyes,

I followed the high flight:

honoring heaven, the bird

traverses

the transparency, without soiling the day.

Winging Westward, it climbs

each step up to the naked blue:

the entire sky is its tower,

and the world is cleansed by its movement.

Though the violent bird

seeks blood in the rose of space,

its structure is

Arrow and flower in flight,

and in the light its wings

are fused with air and purity.

Oh feathers destined

not to tree, Meadow, or combat,

or to the atrocious ground

or sweatshop

but the conquest

of a transparent fruit!

I celebrate the Skydance

of gulls and petrels

attired in snow

as though I had

a standing invitation:

I participate

in their velocity and repose,

in the pause and haste of snow.

What flies in me is manifest

In the errant equation of those wings…

Pablo Neruda