Irish Sea
Queenstown - Liverpool
1909.
Aug. 4 [August 4, 1909]
  A perfect day just comfortably warm (or cool) with
cloudless sky and almost no haze. Fresh southerly wind.
  As our steamer came to her first stop off Queenstown
about six o'clock this morning I was awakened by the
shrill yet musical clamor of Gulls. Looking out my port
hole I saw swarms of them passing & repassing within a few
yards and hundreds of others resting on the water. I saw, also,
almost at the first glance, five Manx Shearwaters on wing.
When I got out on deck an hour or so later the steamer had 
started on her way. Through almost the entire day I was on
her forward deck, with my glass, watching the innumerable birds.
There seemed to be no end of them nor any one place where
they were much more numerous than anywhere else. Everywhere,
as far as the eye could reach, the sea was dotted & the air
alive with, them. Most conspicuous, as well as numerous, were 
the Gulls. They swarmed by hundreds about the stern of the 
ship gliding back and forth on set wings so close past & even
over her decks that I could easily have struck them with a 
short fishing rod. Every now & then one would pass within
two or three yards of my head. I could see the color of their
eyes, of their bills, of their feet, as plainly as if the bird had been 
in my hands. One & all carried the legs & feet stretched out behind
close up under the tail & passed closely side by side. Whenever
any food was thrown overboard they swept down to the spot
from every side to hover & scream and fall behind for a time.
Fully 90 were Mew Gulls (L. canus). These look exactly like
adult Herring Gulls, only smaller. Many seemed intermediate between
those species & puzzled me at first. I heard very often from the
flock the wild cleur-cleur-cleur call which our Herring Gull
gives yet often I could see no bird large enough for that species.