One of those common words that is hard to define.

A seagull is a gull that lives near the sea.

A gull is a member of the family Laridae, subfamily Larinae. But not all members of Larinae are gulls. Most gulls are part of the Genus Larus. Some are not. It's not a very technical term.

So.... A seagull is a stout, web-footed, mostly-probably white or grey with black markings, omnivorous bird of the subfamily Larinae that you see when you're at the beach or out on a boat.

More exactly, a seagull is a loud, fat bird that hangs out around any group of humans that comes near the sea, hoping to pick up some food-like scraps to eat. They often travel in packs, and are usually primarily white. Anything else is overanalysis.

Despite not being near the sea at all this is how we referred to the gulls that flew above the playground at school. They seemed to have a worse reputation than any of the other birds that we saw.

This is probably because there were far more of them and a lot more people had been splattered with their waste. Though this was a rare occurrence, a passionate hate for them was still shared by many people.

We never had any problems with them snatching things out of our hands like the ones at the beach though. They just weren't as brave.

In our last year at school while we were pretending to work in art class, people started watching what the gulls and other birds did while we weren't outside. Small dramas between the birds unfolded, the more noticeable ones were named and became well known characters to us.

That’s what I remember about them and how I think of seagulls.

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