Gull Habits

As is our habit every July, we take a little time to visit Wrightsville Beach where my beloved enjoys the beach (and I do my best to avoid the sun).  One of my strategies for coexisting with these sunbaked strips of silicates is to watch birds.  Brown Pelicans are always interesting -- and plentiful.  Whimbrels are visible from time to time.  But the Big Daddy is always the Laughing Gull.  These characters are endlessly fascinating.  One behavior is that certain large areas have an alpha male who "laughs" hardest and pushes out the lesser boys when good eats are found.  That isn't happenstance.  It seems sentries are posted every fifty to one hundred feet as far as the eye can see and when one gull gets a nibble from the pink slobs (i.e., people) it calls the alarm and gulls are soon everywhere!  It is hilarious how sad-eyed the sentries seem to be.  One almost wonders if this is a behavior that's been refined for the dozens of decades people have spent on the beach.  I think it's just guilt tripping by the people.  I watch. Never feed.  Let others start the fun!