Greedy seagulls!
I had almost forgotten this one!

When I was a teenager (about 14 or so) my parents and I used to go to Myrtle Beach on the off season during my Spring Break. At that time fireworks were still legal on the beaches so I used to buy up loads of bottle rockets, firecrackers and the like and go out on the beach to blow up clam shells and the like. I used to put the bottle rockets flat on the sand and send them racing along the beach, and sometimes shoot them into the waves to blow up underwater... good fun.

So one day I discovered that if you were out on the beach and the storms brought in that dirty whitish foam that goes scudding along the surf that a single firecracker tossed into the pile of foam would rupture every bubble in it- that is, a two foot tall mound of foam would vanish without a trace. How cool was that! Just like magic- bang, and it was gone. I entertained myself for quite a while with this, strolling along the beach with a lit punk and tossing firecrackers through the air to land inside the foam and make it vanish.

You can see where this is going, can't you?

As the gull came down and snatched the lit firecracker from the air I yelled "Nooooo!" and ran toward it, but the gull was already going out over the ocean when it went off. I didn't see what it did to the gull as it was facing away from me at the time, but it made several squawks of protest as it winged away.

I felt terrible about having blown up its beak, but concluded pretty quickly that as I hadn't been luring it by throwing anything else the guilt wasn't needed. But I did still feel a bit sorry for the poor stupid bird...
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Mon 10 Dec 2007, 17:12, Reply)