The Gulls
December 13, 2017
The Gulls
On the first truly cold and blustery day this winter, the gulls were swimming together in a huge flotilla near the railroad bridge over the Fox River. Of all places to be on that day: bobbing in a river exposed to blasts of wind ripping spray off whitecaps. How could that be the warmest and driest place a gull could think of on the first miserable day of winter? Maybe gulls don’t think. Maybe gulls don't need to be warm and dry. Maybe they're warm, even if they're not dry. Maybe they don’t get wet. Maybe it was unsafe to fly. There wasn’t a discernable source of warm water spewing out of the paper mill. But maybe that was it. I couldn't find any information about gulls that would explain this strange sight.