Reviewing Maine 2003 has prompted me into reminiscing about our previous trips to Bar Harbor and Acadia.  Some of those memories take me to the Schoodic Peninsula, which is across the water from Bar Harbor.  To get there by land, one must drive from Bar Harbor almost into Ellsworth and then back out to the peninsula, the outer section of which is actually a part of Acadia National Park.

The outermost part of Schoodic is a wide, flat area that juts into the ocean, so it's an excellent place to just sit and watch the waves hitting the rocks.  We went there at first out of curiosity and a desire to see a different part of Acadia, but we kept going back because of the seagulls.  Now we don't go there as much because Schoodic has no more seagulls than anyplace else near the shore.  It's a long drive just to watch the surf.

When we first went to Schoodic, the place was aswarm with gulls.  It was not unusual to see literally hundreds of them, and quite often a few dozen would greet us as soon as we got out of our car.  This was, of course, because people who came to Schoodic fed them.  Nowadays, though, there's a sign telling people not to feed the wildlife, including the "waterfowl"; human food is not good for them, and they come to depend on it too much.  It's true, of course, and the park officials are absolutely right.  But we didn't know that then.  Anyway, folks have given the sign due consideration, and – either because the handouts have diminished or because they too have read the sign – the seagulls no longer congregate in great flocks at Schoodic.

In the old days, however, we never went to Schoodic without first buying four or five loaves of cheap bread at the supermarket.  We would emerge from the car at Schoodic and start tossing pieces of bread to the gulls.  Cries would go out in all directions – "Free food! Free food! – and we would soon be inundated in a clamor of beaks and feathers.  Had they been only slightly more aggressive, it would have been a scene right out of Hitchcock's The Birds.

Indeed, it did have its occasional downside.  In its eagerness to get the bread, which the gulls would take right out of our hands, a gull might occasionally nip a finger.  After one of them drew blood, I wore gloves.  At first, until we learned not to start the feeding until we were away from the parking lot, we had to clean great gobs of bird poop off the car after a visit to Schoodic.  Even then, there were so many birds around that we still had bird poop on the car.  For that reason, besides wearing gloves, I also decided that it was a good idea to wear a hat.

The hat is itself quite a story.  My favorite hat for this occasion was a baseball cap with a picture of Opus the penguin embroidered in the front.  Once, when I was surrounded by gulls, feeding some by hand and tossing pieces of bread into the air for others, an overeager diner grabbed the top of my hat, apparently thinking he (or she) had a piece of bread – and flew off with it.  Unfortunately, neither the still nor video camera crews were on their toes in the few seconds that transpired between the liftoff and the gull's recognition that my hat was not edible, so we have no photographic record of the event.  But, fortunately, the seagull recognized its error quickly, and I was able to retrieve my favorite hat from the rocks where it had been dropped.

On yet another occasion – and this one is preserved on videotape – a gull perched, wings outspread, right on my head while I was feeding others.  It felt awfully funny and looked even funnier; however, in retrospect, I wonder what my scalp would have looked like if I hadn't been wearing a hat.

I eventually found a simpler way to distribute my largesse to the hungry birds.  Near one of the paths to the rocks is a plaque about three feet square mounted on a pedestal.  If one squats underneath the plaque, which then forms a small "roof" over one's head, it is possible to feed the gulls from a seated position.  By the time I discovered this technique, the birds were accustomed to me and would walk right up to me for their handouts.  The plaque above my head provided a convenient perch for one or two others and a launching pad for them to grab any bread that I threw in the air.  I know I looked silly there surrounded by seagulls, but it was a good change from being deluged by flapping wings, and it kept my hat from being pilfered again.

It was all a lot of fun, but I have to agree that the gulls at Schoodic had become far too familiar with humans and had lost their natural wariness.  I shouldn't have fed them, and I don't know why I enjoyed it so much because they are, in the final analysis, not the most attractive birds – and totally devoid of grace and manners.  Now, I'll settle for admiring seagulls from a distance, especially when they soar above the ocean or across the sky.  For that performance, all bad manners are forgiven.

Surf at Schoodic