“If it is possible to get simple joy from a herring gull then anything is possible”

                    – Letter from my brother

His arrival is announced but the soft flurry of feathers, and the clatter of claws on metal. For a few seconds he looks flustered as he regains his balance. He checks for danger with jittery head movements. Then he locks me with his stare. It is only the second time that a seagull has alighted on our windowsill. I grin!

With slow movements I reach for a pack of Jacob’s Cream Crackers, and untwist the plastic wrapper. Immediately the bird’s head tilts, first one way, the other. He knows the sound of rustling plastic and shuffles in anticipation.

I put my nose to the glass and stare back at him. His beak is long, hook-ended and splintered with tiny grey shards of whatever beaks are made of. I am surprised by its beautiful yellow and red markings, the only colour on this otherwise grey and white creature. It looks as if the markings have been daubed on with paint from a primary school pallet. I notice that when I look into one of its nostrils I can see the light coming through from the nostril on the other side of the beak. I think about how weird that is.

My nose is just one inch from his beak as I stare into his eyes and he stares back at mine. Soggy cornflakes stick to his beak. Then I notice that his eyes are perfect circles of the palest primrose yellow, centred with bottomless pitch-black pupils. For all their beauty, they look mean. His chest is dressed in pristine white down. He stinks of shit.

I reach into the plastic wrapper and withdraw the broken corner of a cracker. The gull edges a few steps along the sill to where a narrow window slat is tilted open. His claws tap on the metal ledge impatiently. I hold the morsel out through the small gap between the framed pane of glass and the wall of the cell. I imagine him taking it gently in his beak. But instead he snatches it roughly with one fierce movement. Throwing his head back he swallows it down, before returning his stare to the exact spot where I had held the cracker. He waits expectantly again.

I realise with a sigh that our interaction will not be quite as I had hoped. This is no ‘Snow White’ moment with kindly curtsies or tweeting birds. His world is harder… crueller. He has learned that survival is only for the fittest. I have a naive urge to tame him… to teach him gentleness.

I examine his feathers closely through the glass; trying to work out how I could recognise him should he visit me again. But his back, wings and tail are all immaculate, with no distinguishing features. I press my forehead to the glass, look down at his feet and notice a single freckle on the webbing of his right foot, in-between his second and third toes! I smile at this discovery: Who knew that seagulls could be identified by their foot freckles?!

For another minute or so he waits but then in a split second he is gone. I pick up the packet of crackers and twist the wrapper closed. I’ll keep these, just in case.