Nerja (a busy holiday resort),Costa del Sol, Andalusia, Spain, 26 degrees in the shade already, last rain we had three days ago.
It’s 8am and the daily pow wow of the seagulls has started. Sitting on antennas, terracotta colour roofs, water tanks and on solar panels, adding another white coating on it.
Listening intensively to them, they squawk a different sound than our seagulls at home in Ireland. It’s definitely the sing song of seagulls but it sounds like a different language or just a different accent. A bit hoarse, a touch of a lower key if you allow me to use a musical term. It reminds me of female opera singers, voices like soprano or contralto. Our seagulls sing the soprano, seagulls here at Costa del Sol maintain the contralto.
Obviously a daily routine by the seagulls, exchanging news. Where is the best spot for food, what waste bin turned over last night, where will you find evidence of last night’s best party. That must be the subject of discussion, I suppose. Then the seagulls go quiet. Time for some cosmetic and feather clean up. Single feathers are flying through the air, some of them fall into that fresh white liquid on the roof, the result of too many cold chips, I guess with some disgust. The sound of pigeons takes over.
9am and I’m out on the street for some shopping. Three cats are out on the street as well. Skinny ones, slow moving, a bit afraid of the stranger coming along, observing my steps of unknown sound. Yes, they are skinny. Very skinny. They need a good meal on their rips. All three of them are still asleep, so it seems. Maybe a car was taken to work and the shelter is gone. First sunbeams disturb the cool and shady spot, the cats have to move. Slowly, not voluntarily, no powerful walk, more a weak sneak. Poor devils. Cats are domestic animals, they love their territory, their own surrounding, living close to humans. Rarely cats go roaming a longer distance.
Seagulls are all over the place, flying up high, diving down to food, like an eagle down into the river for a salmon. Surely you have seen such a wild life report. This seagull operation looks just the same. From a distance they detect tasty food, fly up, fall down from heaven and in less than a second they are gone again, successful. Waste bins are not the only target. It should be common sense to everybody to protect your ice cream, your burger or your bag of chips. But licking you ice cream, with your big bite into the burger, with your wooden fork on the chips, you forget the risk of seagulls. Like procrastinating the danger of losing your joyful munch. These seagulls are fast, very fast. A second later your filthy mouth is full of curses, but gone is gone. The winner is the seagull, always.
In Germany at the Baltic Sea a restaurant owner had a clever marketing idea. With your take-a-away food or even for your outdoor sit down meal you can pay into an insurance. If, yes if, a seagull takes your food you will get a replacement from the restaurant. There is no statistics yet about the win and loss. If the seagulls only knew. Great marketing anyway.
11am and it’s time for a break for myself. Jobs are done but a bit too early for some lunch. The thermometer shows 31 degrees. A big bottle of mineral water is my longing, no food please. Sitting somewhere in the shade is a must.
“Una botella di agua minerale, por favor” Yes, I’ve learned a bit of Spanish and I’m proud of it. Quite happy with myself, a cool drink and table in a cool shady spot, watching the world go by. I have to confess, life is not too bad.
A cat enters the scene. Skinny like all the others I’ve seen this morning. Kitty is looking for mice, Kitty is looking for food, I suppose. The body language of the cat tells me that. On the hunt. At this time of the day, I ask myself, in this high temperature. That cat must be very hungry.
I’m starting to philosophize and compare cats and seagulls. Skinny and fat. I’m beginning to develop a theory and you might follow me.
Cats are domestic animals, pets. Like dogs they live with us, are part of human life and we feed them. Plenty of them are neglected, not looked after, called wild cats though.
Seagulls are wild animals, finding food themselves. Humans don’t look after seagulls. But indirectly we do. Careless we do. Without thinking we do more for seagulls than for cats.
Because we produce waste.
Don’t like these chips, my belly is full, that sauce is not to my taste, sorry for losing over boarding food on my tray, far too much, oops some meat fell on the ground, just coming from the restaurant and have one ice cream too many, strange sausages, pour that cold coffee down the drain, bottle of coke in the middle of the walk way.
And no waste bin in sight, need to deposit litter now, here at this spot. Just leave it on the next windowsill. Somebody will clean up. Chips were expensive anyway, cleaning service included.
Seagulls are no gourmets, not fuzzy when it comes to food. I might say, they eat nearly everything in the line of nutrition products, raw or cooked.
Cats rarely raid litter bins. They have a better taste, more graceful, in my opinion. Cats still are noble animals, we humans lost our nobility.
We, the humans, give plenty of food to seagulls but not to cats. We act careless with food for seagulls and we intentionally neglect cats.
I hope you comprehend. Will we change our behaviour?