While driving home from the grocery store the other day, I
saw the most curious drama playing out in the sky just above the road before
me. Just below where a seagull was circling, a hawk circled, too. They were
turning in sync as if they were participating in a Regency era dance where partners keep
each other at arm’s length. Every now and then, though, the gull would dive,
the hawk would block its descent, and the gull would rise to circle again, the hawk mirroring its movements just below, an ongoing part of their dance. As
they circled, they followed the path of the road before me, so I found myself
following them until they reached the open field of an intermediate school near
my home, where we parted ways.
Speculation
Because our town recently hired a young man with two trained
birds of prey to teach the seagulls in our coastal hamlet to stay away from
shopping areas, I wondered if the hawk was his. I have been wanting to see this
spectacle since I read about it. Seagull herding! I didn’t know such a job
existed.
Imagine having people pay you to travel from one coastal
town to another to train troublesome seagulls to stay away. My mom once made
the unfortunate decision to park her car under a tower of shoebox lights in the
grocery store parking lot. The seagulls, perched on top of the tower, decorated
the top and all four sides of her Rav4. In fact, when she opened the driver’s
side door to get in, they decorated the car’s interior, too. Mom was just
thankful they didn’t decorate her. I know she’s in favor of having seagull trainers
in town.
Thinking that the hawk I saw circling below the seagull
might be one of the seagull trainers, I pictured it herding the seagull to some
imaginary boundary, placing its wings on its hips, and saying, “And stay out!
You belong over there!”
Investigation
But I didn’t see the hawk’s trainer, and the birds were
already several blocks from the shopping area by the time I saw them. When I
got home, I did some research online.
I learned of two possible explanations beyond seagull
training:
First, because hawks are birds of prey, they take what they
want. If the seagull had something in its mouth that the hawk wanted to eat, it
would circle below to force the seagull to keep flying until it got tired and
surrendered its meal.
Second, if the hawk was hungry enough, it would circle below
to force the seagull to keep flying until it became too tired to get away.
Because sometimes seagulls are hawk prey.
My husband once witnessed a hawk eating another bird in the
street just outside our home. The bird was crying, but it was also beyond
saving. Hawks, who are predators, must eat to survive. The circle of life can
be brutal.
Application
Once I had this information, the truth of the dance of the
birds, I tried to imagine ways the seagull could have gotten away. In the first
case scenario, the answer was obvious. If hanging on to something is going to
end your life, you let it go. You give the hawk what it wants and trust that
what you’ll need will become available from another source. You may have to
scrounge along the seashore, but you’ll live to do so.
The second case scenario is more complicated. In that case,
the hawk wants you. Since landing wasn’t an option for the seagull, I wondered
if it could have sought shelter in a nearby tall tree. Perhaps dive into it to
keep the trunk and branches between itself and its enemy. When a predator blocks the path to safety, you seek something or someone stronger for help. Refuge.
Defender. Shelter. Friend.
I don’t know how things turned out for that
seagull, but I hope it got away.
* * *
Photo by Zeki Binici on Unsplash
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