Peggy the Seagull

Last year my wife and I were throwing some leftovers to the seagulls. Competition among the gulls to get at the chow can be pretty intense.

It was then that I happened to notice a seagull with a strange leg watching us in the distance. Its one foot was deformed and its leg stuck out at an odd angle.

I pointed the seagull out to my wife and she immediately felt sorry for it. She tossed a piece of food to it and the bird made an attempt to hobble over to it but the other seagulls swooped in and stole it.

A few days later the gull with the strange leg showed up again. By now I had named it Pegleg. My wife thought that was inappropriate and christened her Peggy.

So now all our choicest leftovers are set aside for Peg. Well throw something large like a chicken carcass to the rest of the gulls and during the melee Peg will hop over to us and scoff down what we brought her.

She has figured out some feeding strategies on her own. While the other seagulls go into the water to bath after eating Peg will wait for us by the exit to the beach for a quick nosh as we are leaving.

This past month we hadn't seen Peg for a few weeks and I began to think something had happened to her. Sunday my wife and I were a few blocks away from the beach when I noticed a gull flying high in the opposite direction.

I couldn't be certain but I thought its leg stuck out like Pegs. So as I'm looking up the gull does a quick turn around and circles over our head. Here I am deciding if its the gull I think it is and the gull is circling lower cocking its head doing the same exact thing.

Then I realized we were wearing different coats and hats then we usually wear when we walk the beach and Peg wasn't sure at first that it was us.

When you take in too account all the other people strolling around us its pretty amazing that a gull can pick out two humans by facial features alone!

Peggy will be happy to learn I have some leftover baked salmon with her name on it.