After recent bone-chilling days, a welcome mid-February thaw provides a few days of respite. At Jordan Lake overwintering gulls shed and replace feathers with breeding plumage. For miles on end, feathers and down drift on lake waters and collect in wrack deposits along rugged shorelines.
Remarkably, large congregations of said ring-billed aviators still gather on beaches. Now and then they take flight, akin a whirlwind of feathered aerialists. It's a primal response to threats from predators or to mob a beach-combing human intruder.
Like ominous whispers of impending doom, said living cloud rising into hazy skies is a fearsome deterrent to those who trespass into their domain. Yet, the beauty of the swirling and tumbling spectacle of aerial acrobatics also tugs at heartstrings—it’s primal poetry in motion.
© Ilija Lukić 2026
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