Three haikus on San Francisco beasts

Floating and falling,
the gulls swirl like flecks of ash:
risen from what fire?

Sky of clouded pearl.
The gulls sweep like music struck
from the Bridge’s strings.

Companionable
sausages, the sea lions
sardine each other.


[And this also concludes the Just Go Do It Photo Challenge for Day 17: Colors.]

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In which I demonstrate great powers of recovery

Coming back from the dead-tired after a week-long conference, I have not forgotten the 30-day photo challenge (see biobabbler’s blog for more).

Many of the following photos were taken on their appropriate day last week, others—well, weren’t.

A friend:

Joey and I have been friends since 7th grade (I used to be taller). We were in Delaware together this October.


Humans meet nature: what better example than a building touched by rainbow?

Beauty:

I spied these rain-beaded leaves lying on the wooden curb surrounding a tree on the sidewalk on my walk to work, proving that even the grimy streets of Dupont Circle are crammed with loveliness.


Dance and shadows (two in one):

These autumn sweet-gum leaves were on the verge of a gavotte, I’m sure.


Artificial light:

Outside in (I was inside my hotel room taking a picture of the sunset behind these buildings):

A face: San Francisco sea lions! (more in a later post)

Animals:

This is a ladybug larva. I think they look like crazy lion-spiky-monsters from old bestiaries.


Water:

Sky:

The stranger:

Technically I was the stranger in this mew gull’s winter habitat, but I had never seen one before (look at that tiny little bill!), so I’m saying that counts.

More soon, this time with words!

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Beach Scene

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Somewhat Overwhelmed

And out of town for work, so I'm afraid I can't provide much in the way of posting beyond an illustration of my current feelings.

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Gull Fight

(Introductory note: Chincoteague, VA, is full of black-headed gulls that sound just like laughing gulls but have the black bills of other kinds of gulls [Bonaparte’s or Franklin’s]. I’m going to call them laughing gulls anyway, though.)

The laughing gulls in Chincoteague are everywhere, on gas stations and banks and people’s roofs, cawing with what sounds like mirth every morning—and whenever else they feel like it.

There are plenty of other kinds of gulls in the area, too, especially on the beach, but none were as prevalent in town as the laughing gulls, and so perhaps these small gulls felt the local piers were their exclusive territory. Possession is nine-tenths of the law, after all.

Whatever the reason, when a large herring gull landed on a post in prime laughing-gull territory, the little black-headed bantams took offense, and one in particular took it upon his- or herself to teach the herring gull a lesson in courtesy by repeatedly dive-bombing the offender.

The herring gull refused to give up its perch, but the dive-bombing ruffled it so much that its location couldn’t have been all that comfortable: it kept looking over its shoulder, waiting for the next attack.

Since I watched this while we were waiting for our sandwiches at a take-out place, I don’t know whether the issue was ever resolved in either gull’s favor. Maybe the laughing gull finally gave up; maybe the herring gull finally gave in.

Maybe the whole thing was a ploy designed so that a third gull could steal people’s sandwiches. I’m not certain, but I bet stranger things have happened.

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One good shot...

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Flotsam and Jetsam (I)

This Columbus Day weekend Annie and I went again to Rehoboth Beach, DE. We saw a great deal of not-so-wild wildlife:

And we saw a fair amount of not-so-live wildlife:

[either a true jellyfish or
a ctenophore (comb jelly)]

[a fish]

[a jellyfish:
it's really most sincerely dead.]

During our seaside strolls we also observed an incident of intraspecific kleptoparasitism.

This phrase may sound complicated, but chances are, if you have siblings, you’ve either engaged in intraspecific kleptoparasitism or been a victim of it. Basically, it’s when you let somebody else of your species expend his/her energy acquiring food—and then you take it from them.

In this case, one gull (ring-billed, I think) had caught a crab, and another ring-bill dive-bombed the poor crab-catcher until s/he, harassed and distracted, dropped the crab, allowing the second gull to swoop in and grab the crustacean.

["Mwahaha."
--It seemed to say.]

Not content with having stolen the crab, the second gull added insult to injury by waving its prize in the first gull’s face (beak?). As we watched, we became convinced that the first gull was standing on its dignity, pretending indifference to its robber’s taunts.

[“Crab? What cr—oh, that crab;
I didn’t want that old thing anyway.”]

The empty-beaked gull, making an attempt at nonchalance, eventually flew away and left the second gull to its stolen meal, but we suspected that it sent a curse of indigestion on its robber’s head.

No doubt the crab did the same.

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