LAUGHING GULLS &
AN EMPTY POTATO-CHIP BAG

At this time of year the common seagull along the coast north of us is the Laughing Gull, so called because its call is slightly reminiscent of a shrill, hardy-har kind of laugh. You can hear the laugh at www.assateague.com/call-lg.wav.

The most striking feature of the mature adult's appearance is its entirely black head -- as if it were wearing an executioner's hood. But that's only during the summer. They're in their winter plummage now, so of all the Laughing Gulls seen Monday, only one was mostly black, the rest having white heads with a little dark mottling. You can the species' various plummages, the species' US distribution, and read more about them at www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/id/framlst/i0580id.html.

Most of Monday's gulls just flew up and down the beach, and sometimes a few birds gathered far offshore and floated in a sea of white caps. The one time the birds brought attention to themselves was when one of them plucked an empty, red potato-chip bag from the sea, and was immediately mobbed by about a dozen others.

What a racket those gulls made with their calls, and there was nothing like laughter in the sound. The birds fought for the bag, for possibly it contained a little food, as if their lives depended on it. No single bird ever kept the bag long enough to figure out whether it was empty or not.

A beach always brings into high relief the fact that most life is made possible only by the deaths of others (birds eating fish, fish eating other fish, plants and dead things, remains of dead creatures washing up on the sand...) and this fight for the red bag was a sudden, spontaneous eruption of that cold fact.

Once, a Brown Pelican crashed into the mélée, snatched up the bag, and maybe just because it was so big (90- inch wingspread) kept it long enough to see that it was empty, and dropped it back into the water. Then the fight continued among the gulls. It was still going on as we hiked up the beach, glad to forget how hunger can cause societal breakdowns in a flash.