A Horror

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Laughing Gull, photo by Ed Konrad.

 
Last night as darkness was starting to fall I was walking our dog Gracie when I saw this gull standing by the road that runs in front of the house, Fulton Beach Road.  As it started towards the water I realized it could not fly.  It had no sooner begun to cross the road then it was hit by a truck.  The poor little thing was convulsing in agony.  I went and got a shovel, then I had to go back and change my shoes, that road has a megafetid water filled ditch between it's edge and my house and I could not cross it in the Fairmount calfskin loafers I had on.  By the time I got to the gull I think it was dead, but I cut it's head off anyway and put the body in the ditch.  I looked up and the children staying at the rental house next door were all on the porch staring at me.  I am sorry that I could not jump the ditch and break the bird's neck, but the shoulder of the road is nonexistent and traffic was heavy.  Like most in Rockport I find the gulls a nuisance, they are constantly dropping dead fish in the yard and once a baby duck, deceased.  Try and eat anything outside down here and you will be ringed by a cloud of raucous, hovering sky bandits demanding to be fed.  But I am very fond of animals and I hate to see one in such pain.  The driver of the truck probably thought the bird would fly off, gulls are always standing in the road and will scatter when a car is heading their way.  The body will be gone by this evening, there is a colony of vultures right down the street that are living in scavenger hog heaven next to the water.
It is not the scale but the immediacy of violent death that makes such an impact.
 

 The gull died in front of that gap in the grass to the left.  This is the Connie Hagar Wildlife Sanctuary.


Those who would judge me should walk a mile in my shoes.  995.00 bucks.


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