Cannery Row: Love Conquers All

Spring is in the air today - literally.  A seagull sailed overhead, its voice sounded like a rusty hinge, and its mouth stuffed so full of grass and twigs that it could have been mistaken for a flying shrub.  It landed on a rooftop in the neighborhood and continued its call, then presented the shrubbery to its mate, pleased with its success.  

In the last three days I have seen more spring nesting activity than I ever have before.  Yesterday, as I walked past an abandoned commercial lot filled with weeds, trash and detritus on Cannery Row, I saw a large gull walking around in circles, looking around for sticks and dried leaves.  He appeared to be anxious, rather manic if you ask me, and took aim at a scraggly fennel stalk, eyeing it critically.  I don't know how a seagull eyes anything critically, but this seagull had enough focus and intention to look at this fennel with a very intent stare.  Then, he lunged at it, grabbing a large twig in his bill, assuming he was going to fly away with it.  He was obviously thinking he had to get back to the pregnant missus quickly.  My guess was he had forgotten to bring her some of her favorite fish scraps from the wharf and was about to be sent to the proverbial doghouse unless he made up for it with prime nest-worthy twigs.  I heard her scolding in the distance, at the water's edge beyond the cement foundations and crumbled walls.  

The twig was attached firmly to its stalk and wasn't about to surrender, only to become nesting material.  It was rooted firmly in the cracked cement, clinging dearly to what life it had left to it.  The gull was stopped short, and he was very surprised.  He backed up a step and yanked vigorously, and then again, and again.  No luck.

The gull dropped the twig and looked even more intently at the whole plant.  It was a baleful stare this time, the look of a determined, irritated male unwilling to be made a fool of by a mere itinerant weed occupying cast-off space in an overgrown junk yard.  Heck no.  Mind you, the lot was full of other twiggy plants and clumps of grass.  A thousand seagulls descending on the lot to shop for dried material for their dream nests would have all gone away replete, satisfied, happy with the bargains they would have discovered littering the yard.  He could have easily gathered up huge mouthfuls in other areas.  His stubbornness precluded any other options.  The die was cast.  His whole being said, "You and me, bush, this is it.  You're mine."

The gull stood before the mocking fennel.  He looked like a general contractor regarding inferior material laid before him by a second-rate supplier, disgust all over his face.  He lifted his feathers and settled them down again quickly.  He grabbed the base of the plant and clamped down hard with his strong bill and then yanked backwards again.  The plant began to give in.  It made a little shredding sound.  Sensing his moment, he hauled off and yanked one last time.  Snap!  The twig, and the whole rest of the plant was suddenly uprooted from the cracked cement.

Then the gull dropped the offending plant in front of him, vindicated.  He lifted his beak and yelled about it once or twice, then snagged it back up into his beak and took off, sighing with relief I'm sure.  His mate would be happy once again.  No doghouse for this guy, no way.  

I watched all this from my vantage point on my side of the chain link fence, seeing the perfect metaphor for American family life played out right before my eyes.  More specifically, it seemed this gull was a bird straight from the 50s, a bit paunchy, overbearing, his mate a stay-at-home female who was literally feathering her nest, readying for the two chicks to come.  It was kind of weird, but I had no problem imagining martinis shaken and poured at 5 PM, a La-Z-Boy nearby, and bowling shirts hanging in their closet.

In contrast, a community of cormorants balanced serenely on the high cross-members of cannery ruins as they adjusted the nests at their feet.  They lifted their bills in the air when the breeze intensified briefly, sniffing for delicacies and possibilities in the calm sea below their perches.  They took turns diving into the water and dredging up sea lettuce, which they held lightly in their long hooked beaks as they returned to their nests.  Something about their stances and attitudes spoke to me of their work in the shallows of the oceans, swimming with swift strokes, looking for little fish among the rocks and kelp.  They were elegant and keen to socialize but at the same time kept a perfect distance of a wing's length between themselves and their neighbors on either side.  It would have been an affront to them to stare openly, so I averted my eyes when they were exchanging bits of kelp from beak to beak at the nest.

No one has ever seen such a Spring, full of vigor and green life, birds hard at work readying for parenthood.  First came volumes of rain, over and over, with plants of all kinds responding with lush growth and full larders for animal and bird alike.  Now that mating has been accomplished, the next phase of preparation is in full swing.  From all apparent signs, there is a baby boom to come, and it's really going to be something.  I wonder if that gull has considered a minivan yet.