Seagulls and Obadiah

I promise this will be my final ocean post, but I just had to add these seagull photos to the blog. I love the way they turned out. They look almost ethereal, more like paintings than photographs. Maybe it's because the gulls were so backlit.

At first they were all bathing in the estuary that comes in along the north end of the beach. Then some darker weather started moving over and they began to face into the wind. Some tucked their heads to stay warm against the gale and some just stood tall, beaks pointed south, bearing the heavy gusts.

I was reminded of a favorite childhood book, Thy Friend Obadiah. It's the story of a young Quaker boy who reluctantly befriends a seagull in his Nantucket fishing village during the Colonial time period.

I always loved this book — the cobblestone roads on Nantucket, how the family dressed and cooked their meals in a big stone fireplace, the way Obadiah's mother tucked him under heavy quilts in his attic bedroom (by candlelight no less). But the best part was when Obadiah peeked out his bedroom window and saw his loyal seagull friend, perched on the chimney facing into the wind, keeping watch through the night. I wanted a seagull friend who would sit outside my window, darn it.