Angry Boids

I thought it was a fair question in 1971:  why are there seagulls in Denver?

There's no sea.  Not one for a thousand miles and more, in any direction.

One wag told me that they were blown up here by residue of Hurricane Camille in 1969.

At the time, I almost believed that.

I recently saw the question posed on Ask!, and one respondent's answer astonished me:  she claimed to be a lifelong resident of Denver and "I've never seen a seagull here in all my years.  I think you have the wrong species in mind".

Apparently this lifelong Denver resident has never visited a lake, pond, river, golf course or grocery store parking lot in the Denver area.

Yes...Denver has seagulls.  They look like seagulls.  They fly like seagulls.  They make noises like seagulls (kind of like a flying elk during rut, without the risk of a really gnarly elk-sized dump from above).  And they scavenge like seagulls.

A visit to any landfill might look like this.

And like crows, magpies or other scavengers, they'll occasionally get brazen with their scavenging.

As for how they managed to get so far from the sea, I do believe I've found the answer to that one.

Seagulls are opportunists.  Some, even now, may be working for the government, looking in on 'citizens of interest'.

Others, thoroughly accustomed to close association with humans, have picked up distinctly dubious human behaviors, like using steroids:

One thing is sure...from their prehistoric ancestors primal inclinations:

Seagulls in Denver -- adapted to Man's ways, means, garbage, steroids and without fear -- can not be taken lightly:

See?  Even my page rules don't impress this gull with gall.

Worse...they're starting to teach other avian species ways to get back at all those spotless clean windows:

It's time to control seagull immigration to Denver.  And while we're at it, restrict platypus from learning how to fly...