Today I give thanks for birds, specifically the seagulls shown here catching some early morning sunshine on the side of these incredible rock formations that jut out into the Atlantic Ocean. This photo really doesn’t do them justice at all, but maybe by squinting right at the middle of the rocks, you can get a sense of what I saw when I woke up this morning. We needed our binoculars to get a good look at the hundreds of white birds that, from a distance, resembled a light coat of snow on these tropical outcroppings.
What I love about seagulls is how they glide so gracefully over the waves and sand, rising on the wind, then divebombing to scoop up a morsel of fish – or cookie crumbs discarded by children as they raced into the sea. Dancing for their dinners, swirling and swooping and twirling around, they put on a beautiful show before screaming raucously as they fight each other over the remains of tourists’ picnics.
And isn’t this what we humans are like, too? Imperceptible from far away, creating our own little dances and dives, and then swooping down with curses as we seek to get our own needs satisfied? Today I give thanks for the birds, who remind me of both the best and the most challenging aspects of being human.
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