Watching the seagulls hover over the final event of Fisherman’s Picnic— the fish toss on Sunday afternoon, just before the drawing for the grand prize of $10,000—I was reminded of how omnipresent seagulls are in our North Shore life.
They are always around when there is food, of course, and they are probably quite puzzled during Fisherman’s Picnic by the silly humans tossing around perfectly good herring. At last year’s Fisherman’s Picnic finale, a seagull couldn’t withstand the temptation and it flew down and captured a fish in mid-air. The crowd broke into laughter, but no one was surprised. Seagulls are everywhere.
Theyof course can mess up a freshly washed vehicle and unfortunately they hit a person now and then. Theyare the bane of a number of downtown businesses, nesting on rooftops and making a mess. Not to mention a scene, as baby seagulls fall from the nest and softhearted folks try to save them. Most of us know it’s best to let nature take its course—but it’s hard when there is a pitiful baby that needs saving. There have been more than a few seagull rescues gone awry when the foolish birds, freshly rescued, promptly fall out of the nest again. It’s better to ignore them, even though it is difficult.
Their calls are always there, as a raucous soundtrack to our North Shore lives. We can hear seagulls off in the distance during meetings, at weddings, at funerals—at plays. A masterful bit of improvisation at the last Grand Marais Playhouse production, Cole Porter’s You Never Know,
was because of our white-feathered friends. As one scene got started a noisy bunch of birds must have found some food to fight over outside the Arrowhead Center for the Arts. The gulls became noisier and noisier and the audience attempted not to snicker at this undignified addition to the classy musical comedy.
However, Rob Burgess, as Baron Rommer, refused to be upstaged by the ubiquitous birds. As he made his entrance, he leaned toward his cast mate Kurt Anderson (the butler, Gaston) and in his best stage whisper declared, “Don’t pay attention to those darned seagulls.”
The audience felt free to chuckle and the discomfort about the disturbance dissipated. And eventually, so did the seagulls’ cries so attendees were able to again enjoy the music.
The birds behaved themselves quite well at this Fisherman’s Picnic fish toss, watching patiently from the roof of The Attic gift shop. There were three or four perched there, content to wait for the people to leave to see if they could find any treats remaining in the street. They looked lovely, perched on the colorful roof, against the bright blue sky.
They really are lovely birds when they are quiet. There is not much to compare to the sight of a gull soaring over the water or perched on a lamppost. That’s why we’ve made them our trademark. Seagulls grace Cook County mugs and T-shirts and billboards in the Twin Cities. So although they can be as obnoxious as the cartoon gulls in the Disney cartoon movie Finding Nemo,
calling out “Mine! Mine! Mine!” over food, we enjoy them—most of the time
What to do the rest of the time, when they make a mess or too much noise? Consider following Rob’s advice, “Don’t pay attention to those darned seagulls!”
Life isn’t all beer and skittles, but beer
and skittles, or something better of the
same sort, must form a good part of
every Englishman’s education.
Thomas Hughes
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