I have just started to reread Jonathan Livingstone Seagull (Bach, 1970).
Like many of my generation I read it when it was first published and was inspired by its message of rugged individuality, of being brave enough to go against the crowd and, of course, the sheer exuberance of flight whether real or metaphorical. The book sold in its millions, largely through word of mouth. As I read, I reflect that it has not aged well. The anthropomorphism feels strained. When asked why he can’t be like the rest of the flock and just focus on eating food Jonathan answers, “I don’t mind being bone and feathers, mom. I just want to know what I can do in the air…” For me, Jonathan is too much an American little boy and not enough a bone and feathers gull.
The whole idea of a gull wanting to somehow self-actualize feels strained in an age where our towns and cities are besieged by these birds diving bombing us to steal chips or defecating across our buildings, pavements or worse.
I have a friend, let’s call him Gordon, who hates gulls. “Bastard seagulls,” as he calls them, telling them to fuck off back out to sea. Given just a little encouragement, or perhaps a couple of beers, he will hide himself in the garden and fire at them with his laser pen. This is something, apparently, they don’t like too much. The pest control company NBC Environment writes approvingly that, “Laser bird scarers have proved to admirably work and move on seagulls… where they are causing damage or a threat to health(NBC Environment/Orkin, 2023).
I am not a much of a gull fan myself, but recognize that their status as urban pests is largely a problem of our own making. According to much of the British press we are at war with our gulls. They are “wreaking havoc across Britain”(Beever, 2024); thuggishly ruining days at the beach (Jacobs and Patterson, 2024); putting our seaside resorts under siege (Constable, 2024). Yet, as Esther Addley (2025) writes in the Guardian the gull population is in fact in serious decline. It’s just they have moved from their traditional rural nesting sites into our urban centres; both the herring gull and the kittiwake are still red-listed by the British Trust for Ornithology(2021) meaning amongst other factors that there has been a 50% decline in breeding populations over the last 25 years.
All this hatred towards creatures, that let’s face it, are just doing what they’ve always done: finding ways to survive. It evokes a particular set of human qualities: our capacity to villainise anything or anyone who we perceive to act against our own interests; our problems with empathy; and our astonishing capacity to project own badness to anywhere or anything on which we can conveniently throw it.
My friend Gordon who hates gulls is a lovely chap, a devoted family man, generous, kind, a man who freely gives many hours to causes he supports. Yet he will rant and rage at the “bastard gulls” who “should be back out at sea where they belong”. It’s an erroneous thought, of course. Gulls have never bred or lived at sea.
This level of hatred for something or other seems to be pretty ubiquitous. And you don’t have to look far to find it. Israelis hating Palestinians, Republicans hating democrats, Labour hating Conservative. Nye Bevin is reputed to have once referred to the Tories as “lower than vermin”(Socialist Health Association, 2025). Even within the same ideological groups there is hatred between factions. Look at all the splits in organised religion or the venomous levels of hatred in the psychotherapy world between the Freudians and the Klieineans or the Freudians and the Jungians. Swift satirised this wonderfully in Gulliver’s Travels(1992) describing the Lilliputians internal disputes between those who broke their eggs at the big end and those who favoured the smaller end. It seems we have an endless capacity for mindless hatred and bigotry. We all seem to need our metaphorical seagulls. I once delivered a pamphlet for the Green Party to a lovely old lady who told me she would use it to line the cat litter tray. I suppose it was at least being recycled.
When Gordon tells me about the seagulls there is in amidst the rage a peculiar pleasure, the pleasure of having something to hate. Having something that is of lower status than me, something I can rail against and dump all my loathing upon makes me feel so good!
RA
References
Addley, E. (2025) ‘The seagulls have landed: why gulls are encroaching on Britain’s towns’, The Guardian, 21 June. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2025/jun/21/the-seagulls-have-landed-why-gulls-are-encroaching-on-our-towns (Accessed: 24 June 2025).
Bach, R. (1970) Jonathan Livingstone Seagull. London: Macmillan.
Beever, S. (2024) Seagulls wreaking havoc across Britain as beachgoers and restaurants terrorised, Daily Mirror. Available at: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/seagulls-wreaking-havoc-across-britain-33505956 (Accessed: 24 June 2025).
British Ornithological Trust (2021) Birds of Conservation Concern 5. Available at: https://www.bto.org/sites/default/files/publications/bocc-5-a5-4pp-single-pages.pdf (Accessed: 24 June 2025).
Constable, N. (2024) Resorts under siege by ‘The Club’…of dive-bombing seagulls, Mail Online. Available at: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13579383/Gang-herring-gulls-estate-safety-helmets-firearms-battle-human-bird.html (Accessed: 24 June 2025).
Jacobs, T. and Patterson, S. (2024) Gang of thuggish seagulls ruined day at beach – one stole daughter’s ice cream, The Sun. Available at: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/29656387/seagulls-beach-stealing-food-holidaymakers-uk/ (Accessed: 24 June 2025).
NBC Environment/Orkin (2023) ‘Do lasers work on seagulls?’ Available at: https://www.nbcenvironment.co.uk/about-us/articles/do-lasers-work-on-seagulls/.
Socialist Health Association (2025) Bevan lower than vermin speech 4 July 1948 –, https://sochealth.co.uk/. Available at: https://sochealth.co.uk/national-health-service/the-sma-and-the-foundation-of-the-national-health-service-dr-leslie-hilliard-1980/aneurin-bevan-and-the-foundation-of-the-nhs/bevans-speech-to-the-manchester-labour-rally-4-july-1948/ (Accessed: 27 June 2025).
Swift, J. (1992) Gulliver’s Travels. Ware: Wordsworth Editions.
Myself, I have an affection for herring gulls -their splendid white wings and flying skills, their cheeky piratical ways, their general attitude. I saw one once perched on a litter bin in Poole High street, at a busy crossroad, swoop out to neatly snatch a slice of pizza from an unwary girl passing by.
But even if I didn’t like them I would agree with your comments about people loving to hate, and seeing it as virtue. I see it more and more online, in politics, in religion, in ethics. Toleration of people with different views seems to be seen more and more as weakness or collusion, and aggression and insult as something admirable. That’s a very bad way to go, IMO.
Good article! I have a similar physical reaction to urban foxes, when they seem to have lost all fear and act as if they own the street.
Maybe they are even claiming social security!
As Rob says, it’s extraordinary how tribal we are. And how quick to condemn aggression, greed, cunning and unfair aeronautical skills in certain birds.
We are all somewhere in this ecological chain, finding our openings for survival.
I also read it when it came out, but I enjoyed it for its sheer exuberance and never looked for any human parallel. To this day, I enjoy sitting on the cliff-tops watching seagulls sweeping and soaring, and thinking of Jonathan… but then where I live, seagulls don’t usually interfere with humans (actually its more the other way around).