90 Union Bay 



gulls visit the marsh during the year. This one, the glaucous- 

 winged, the largest, is distinguished from the others by the 

 absence of black in its wing tips. I saw it first as a white 

 patch moving in the tangle of cattails two or three feet back 

 from the water, an unusual place for any kind of a white 

 object and particularly for a gull. The day was cold, the 

 wind pushed white clouds to the northeast, and two or three 

 hundred gulls flew above the marsh. That was the kind of 

 action they liked on cold and windy fall days. They cared 

 nothing for moving about below as a chicken might move 

 in a barnyard. I wondered why this bird had grounded and 

 why it should behave in such an un-gull-like fashion. Gulls 

 did not regularly practice methodical examination of the 

 ground. They visited the sanitary fill and fought over scraps 

 they found, or they pursued the other gulls when they had 

 been fortunate enough to pick up a large or otherwise tempt- 

 ing morsel. The humdrum life was not for them. They ranged 

 about constantly and, when tired, slept motionless on the 

 athletic fields, the roof of the athletic pavilion, or on the ex- 

 posed open flats which formed temporary islands when the 

 water was low. Why was this bird behaving so unconvention- 

 ally? 



I determined to investigate and paddled my canoe close 

 to where the gull stood inside the cattails. If, temporarily, it 

 had become a shorebird in habits, it overlooked that fact 

 when danger threatened, for it immediately, left the shelter 

 of the cattails which many shorebirds would have sought, 

 and entered the water, paddling just fast enough to maintain 

 a position about a rod ahead of the canoe. As I increased my 

 speed, the bird swam faster until it began to show signs of 

 distress. I thought I knew its trouble and so I paddled until 

 I was only a yard behind it. The single attempt it made to fly 

 was a failure, for one wing refused to operate and the bird, 

 realizing the fact, put no more strain on it. It neither made 

 any further attempt to escape nor did it show any fear nor 



