I grew up in proximity to seagulls: In my hometown, Mobile, Ala., we had seagulls in the mall parking lot. They were everywhere from the beach to miles inland.

I never expected to see them in the mountains of WNC, however. And I never expected to see them in the WNC mountains on a foggy snowy night in December. But last night, I did.

While enjoying a quiet night at home, I heard a thumping outside. Suspecting bears, bear dogs (it’s hunting season up here), raccoons, possums (found one of those the other day), I checked outside. A huge white bird fluttered away into the snow-covered trees. I grabbed my camera and went out into the misty mini-blizzard. I heard the flutter of big wings and that little squeaky sound gulls make.

In the glow of my flashlight, I spied one on the roof and another trying to land in the trees, but flapping down to the ground. The gulls appeared so exhausted, they made no attempt to get away when I crept up close.

Did the fog and snow confuse them? Were they lost and exhausted? The next morning, they were gone.

At YouTube, there’s a clip of the video I took, click here.

Wow.  Totally weird.  They also seem so calm and maybe that is their exhaustion, i don’t know.

(an aside: thanks for using the word proximity without the useless descriptive appendage of ‘close’)

You know what bugs me? “SAFE haven.”

Agreed, brebro!  As a matter of fact i thought annoying words deserved it’s own thread over here.

I hate it when scientists throw brickbats at mystics. And I love the notion of seagulls falling on my mountain-cabin roof last night.

But I did a little search and landed (so to speak) on enature.com, where there was, you guessed it, a scientist. This is what he said:

“Question:My husband and I were dining in a river restaurant Saturday evening along the Ohio River in Maysville, KY, which is about 7 hours from the nearest seashore. We saw a flock of birds that looked just like seagulls or terns land in the river and float for a few seconds and fly and land in another area of the water. Is it possible that they were way off course to their natural habitat? Another couple seated near us said they used to live on the shore in New Jersey and thought they were seeing terns or seagulls, also.

“Answer: The name seagull is a misnomer. There are millions of gulls that spend their entire lives inland, and never see the sea. The species that you saw was problem the ring-billed gull, a common inland ‘seagull.’  — Birding Expert - George H. Harrison”

I’ll have to check the close-ups I got of the birds, but I do believe there was a dark band around the bill of least one of these wondering critters.

The spooky and marvelous thing that night: Looking up into the misty-snowed sky and seeing shadows in reverse—white-on-white as what seemed to be MORE seagulls flew overhead. It was like seeing tiny stars out of the corner of your eye, but not seeing ‘em when you turn your gaze.

jasmine - 16 December 2008 06:13 AM

plz come clear with ur thoughts so that it may easy to respond it.

boy, there’s a mixed message.

Clarity: I had trouble describing what I saw.

I looked up into the misty-snow, and the mostly-white gulls flew overhead. It was hard to see them—white gulls in white snow and mist. It reminded me of seeing shadows, or faint stars out of the corner of your eye.

Sorta like UFOs.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/01/15/how-cell-phones-are-killing-birds.aspx

How Cell Phone signals are killing birds and screwing up their migratory patterns.

Migratory birds are known to use the geomagnetic field as a source of compass information. Scientists have shown that oscillating magnetic fields disrupt the orientation behavior of migratory birds.

Another reason to dislike cell phones