Voyage from Liverpool to Boston - Off south coast of Ireland.
1911.
August 2
(No 13)
[August 2, 1911]

Remarkable flight of Herring Gulls.

  With respect to individual skills and proficiency of flight there seemed
to be little if any difference among the hundred or more
Herring Gulls which accompanied us on the occasion just
described. Indeed one and all of them was evidently a past master
in the art of gliding on set wings into the teeth of strong wind.
When, as often happened, all were doing it at once the general effect
was more impressive, not to say amazing, than anything of
the kind that I have ever before witnessed. Its impressiveness
was heightened by the absolute silence of the swarm of great,
snowy birds and by the mysterious ease and perfect orderliness
with which they swept ceaselessly onward like a decorously
marshalled army of bird ghosts. For not one of them ever
gave tongue or interfered in any way with another until
the moment arrived when food of some kind was thrown
overboard. Whenever that happened they would break out into
a shrill chorus of exultant cries and descend at once to
the water to flop & jostle one another as they hovered just
above it eagerly picking up the floating bread or biscuit.