Bird Watching: There's a Gull in my car..., 1 by threegardeners

threegardeners wrote:
So I had to drive to town the other day to do some shopping, errands, etc. There's a busy 4 lane highway going into town. Brockville in on the St. Lawrence river so there's always gulls around....and restaurants mean there's always gulls killed on the highway.

I was nearing this super busy intersection and saw him (her?) in the road. Thought it was another casualty...until...I swear as I was driving by, in slow motion, he looked right at me!!

sigh...being me I jammed on the brakes, pulled into the closest lot, did a quick spin around and flew back out into traffic.

Flipped on the 4-ways and dove out...dodged a few cars and a tractor trailer...grabbed the gull and dodged back to the relative safety of my car amid blaring horns and middle finger waves.

There I was sitting in my car holding a Gull. A Ring Billed Gull. I looked at him and he looked at me. More honking woke me up and I plopped him on the passenger seat so I could drive out of the way.

The gull promptly deposited his last meal on my cloth seats. I shook my head in disbelief...I had a Gull in my car for crying out loud!

I had a bunch of stops to make so I threw my sweater over him while I ran into multiple stores to do my errands. Shared my bottled water with him. Had no idea what I was gonna do with him. I headed home.

When I got home I stopped at a friends house...asked if I could borrow his empty pond. I floated the Gull on a pond, it's fenced in to keep kids out but also keeps predators out. My friend is feeding him when he feeds his ducks.

He can't stay there...Gulls are a protected species and it's illegal to keep one in captivity...broken leg or not.

I'm looking for a rehab place reasonably close to home....and my car still smells like Gull poo.