UNDER
EXMOUTH SKIES (Part 31)
I fear seagulls in Exmouth are getting bigger and one day will be the
size of pterodactyls. No longer will they be feeding on detritus and
the rubbish from dustbins but will have their eye on more nourishing
prey. At the very least, the signs in town will have to be changed
from 'Please don't feed the seagulls' to 'Please don't feed the
seagulls - your children'.
For all that, the question remains: Where do seagulls go when they
die? Why aren't our streets strewn with their carcasses? Is it true
they head out to sea to die? If so, does this mean they know when
they are soon to die and like elephants head for a fabled graveyard?
What is this sense of death they might have and why don't we as people
have the same? Or maybe we do? If only on a subconscious level? On a
humankind level, are we actually somehow aware of our impending
demise and might this explain Donald Trump? Might this explain David
Cameron?
If indeed seagulls do head out to sea to die then what distance are
we talking about? Why is there never seagull remains swept up onto
the shore? You'll find everything else under the sun (and from under
other suns too) swept up on the shore at break of day but never a
hint of seagull.
The world is a strange, mysterious, frightening but wonderful place
and no more so than in Exmouth where seagulls the size of dinosaurs
hover outside your bedroom window on a morning and Armageddon is not
denied.
Exmouth is a favoured seaside holiday resort that welcomes careful drivers and happy campers.
Ah, where do birds go to die?! I love the fact that it seems they just take themselves off somewhere quiet and private to fade away whereupon they can be absorbed back into the earth or the sea... fed on by beetles or fish or whatever... and it all kinda happens in secret.
ReplyDeleteYesterday I witnessed an altogether different kind of avian demise when a sparrowhawk caught a starling in my garden. It was a noisy and brutal killing but oddly wondrous at the same time. All that is left now is a large pile of carefully plucked feathers.
But that clip from the Birds looks like heaven to me!
Fear of a bird planet!
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