Trash Birds

Trash bird: A bird which is as common as the dust. Trash birds fill all the best habitats, eat all the tastiest food, and crowd all the sunniest perches. Birdwatchers hate trash birds: not only do they drive out their classier cousins, but they consistently get in the way of more interesting sightings. Often, a trash bird has the temerity to look just like a non-trash bird, from a distance, causing endless confusion and disappointment.

I didn't know about trash birds till just recently. There I was, making joyful note of every seagull and song-sparrow, when I should have been cursing their names. (Their proper names, that is. I have it on good authority that I shouldn't be saying seagull. I should call them glaucous-winged gulls, or herring gulls, or, on a particularly fortunate day, mew gulls. No self-respecting birder says seagull. They'd sooner say shithawk or garbage-goose.)

I had a coffee-coloured parasol, once upon a time, which I referred to as my Shithawk Shelter (or, in the presence of adults, my Seagull Umbrella). Whenever my school held an outdoor event, this thing got dragged along. Me and my mates, we'd be loafing on the hillside with a picnic, ignoring whatever rugby or cricket match was in progress. Of course, we weren't the only ones. Our school was a hive of sloth and gluttony. By mid-morning, the yard would be redolent with the scent of warm sarnies and potato crisps, and swarming with hungry wildlife. There were ants and bees, of course, and the odd stray dog, but the worst was the gulls. They circled and dove, guzzling garbage like there was no tomorrow. And when their bellies wouldn't hold any more, they relieved the pressure in a most disagreeable way. Pthbbbbt!

At any rate, whenever one of these hoved in sight, we'd all crowd under my silly brown parasol, screaming "Shithawk shelter, shithawk shelter!" Imagine it, though: five or six teenaged girls, all trying to squeeze under this wee dainty parasol! If a seagull had ever shat on us, we'd all have been splattered, the way we were jammed in there, arms and legs all of a tangle.

Behold the portly Garbage Goose
With crumbs and jam bespeck'd--
One end is loud; the other loose,
He garners no respect.

Behold the grubby Garbage Goose
Prospecting in the bin--
Let's kick him in his broad caboose,
So he goes tumbling in!

I had meant to write more, but I was called away mid-ramble, to attend to more pressing matters. While I was gone, seagulls stole all my ideas. Trash-birds are inveterate thieves. Just kick a crow's nest, if you don't believe me. They've always got something, these crows--a missing necklace, a shiny buckle, all that sort of thing. It was only a matter of time before they started in on the intellectual property.