Seagull down

[Accy cyclist]

Off topic but Geese,i went to Saltaire last week on the tow path.On my arrival i sat at the first bench to have an orange and a banana.I was surrounded by a pack of them,one of them even pinched the skin,but soon dropped it.But what got me was the shoot tons of it all over the pavement.Filthy caked in slimy runny green shoot.Not a fan of Geese.

Canadian Geese are crazy! Go to Fairhaven Park in Lytham near Blackpool and open a pack of butties!!

 

[Accy cyclist]

What about nesting swans! 20 years ago i was working on the evening shift at a factory. I travelled there by bike on the canal bank. One day i just could not get past them. I even climbed a wall into a field to bypass them,but they followed me! When i got to work half an hour late the foreman said "late again i see!" "But but i was pinned down by crazed swans" i replied. "Yeah right,pull the other one,that's another half hour wages i'll be docking"he said.

 

[Tim Hall]

Canadian Geese are crazy! Go to Fairhaven Park in Lytham near Blackpool and open a pack of butties!!

I understand they're called Canada Geese, not Canadian Geese.

 

[TVC]

I understand they're called Canada Geese, not Canadian Geese.

No they're foreign geese, coming over here , eating our chips, putting our great British gulls out of a job.

 

[Accy cyclist]

I understand they're called Canada Geese, not Canadian Geese.

Yeah but i meant geese from Canada. I wasn't giving them a title.

 

[Drago]

I'm afraid that seagull will have been collected overnight by the KFC Ingredients Crew. He'll be a bargain bucket by now, with the colonels secret recipe of herbs and spices smeared all over him.

 

[Dayvo]

IME terns make far more of a racket than gulls.

 

[Tim Hall]

IME terns make far more of a racket than gulls.

The population of terns depends on their behaviour.

One good tern deserves another.

 

[Randomnerd]

'Twas on an iron, icy day
I saw a pirate gull down-plane,
And hover in a wistful way
Nigh where my chickens picked their grain.
An outcast gull, so grey and old,
Withered of leg I watched it hop,
By hunger goaded and by cold,
To where each fowl full-filled its crop.

They hospitably welcomed it,
And at the food rack gave it place;
It ate and ate, it preened a bit,
By way way of gratitude and grace.
It parleyed with my barnyard cock,
Then resolutely winged away;
But I am fey in feather talk,
And this is what I heard it say:

"I know that you and all your tribe
Are shielded warm and fenced from fear;
With food and comfort you would bribe
My weary wings to linger here.
An outlaw scarred and leather-lean,
I battle with the winds of woe:
You think me scaly and unclean...
And yet my soul you do not know,

"I storm the golden gates of day,
I wing the silver lanes of night;
I plumb the deep for finny prey,
On wave I sleep in tempest height.
Conceived was I by sea and sky,
Their elements are fused in me;
Of brigand birds that float and fly
I am the freest of the free.

"From peak to plain, from palm to pine
I coast creation at my will;
The chartless solitudes are mine,
And no one seeks to do me ill.
Until some cauldron of the sea
Shall gulp for me and I shall cease...
Oh I have lived enormously
And I shall have prodigious peace."

With yellow bill and beady eye
This spoke, I think, that old grey gull;
And as I watched it Southward fly
Life seemed to be a-sudden dull.
For I have often held this thought -
If I could change this mouldy me,
By heaven! I would choose the lot,
Of all the gypsy birds, to be
A gull that spans the spacious sea.

Robert Service

Great; I admire your hutzpah, quoting poetry in one of the dullest threads on the internet so far this year. Chapeau!

 

[jefmcg]

It always helps to try and raise the tone of the debate...

Debate? It's more like

"Mum, look at this dead seagull."
"Stop poking that thing and go inside and wash your hands. It's disgusting"

 

[User10119]

into a wider debate

Not even I, with all the accumulated tetch and grump of a looooooong school year not nearly near enough to finished behind me, can be arsed to argue about seagulls. Can I suggest that the word 'conversation' or 'discussion' might work a bit better than 'debate' in the context. Less prone to misinterpretation and scaring the horses or something.
View attachment 418558

 

[User10119]

It looks totally unscared....

Google didn't come up with much for scared or frightened seahorse and my artistic skills aren't up to sketching one

 

[User10119]

Although my search did remind me how utterly cool they are!

 

[stephec]

Has anyone seen the video that seems to be doing the rounds on Facebook of a seagull stealing a bag of crisps from Gregg's?

I'm not sure how genuine it is, but it's funny all the same.

 

[jefmcg]

[QUOTE 5307073, member: 10119"]Although my search did remind me how utterly cool they are![/QUOTE]
Indeed.

I didn't realise that Wikipedia does erotica

Before breeding, seahorses may court for several days. Scientists believe the courtship behavior synchronizes the animals' movements and reproductive states so the male can receive the eggs when the female is ready to deposit them. During this time, they may change color, swim side by side holding tails or grip the same strand of sea grass with their tails, and wheel around in unison in what is known as a "predawn dance". They eventually engage in a "true courtship dance" lasting about 8 hours, during which the male pumps water through the egg pouch on his trunk which expands and opens to display its emptiness. When the female’s eggs reach maturity, she and her mate let go of any anchors and drift upward snout-to-snout, out of the seagrass, often spiraling as they rise. They interact for about 6 minutes, reminiscent of courtship. The female then swims away until the next morning, and the male returns to sucking up food through his snout.[18] The female inserts her ovipositor into the male’s brood pouch and deposits dozens to thousands of eggs. As the female releases her eggs, her body slims while his swells. Both animals then sink back into the seagrass and she swims away.
[..]
Throughout gestation, which in most species requires two to four weeks, his mate visits him daily for “morning greetings”.