IN THESE dour Covid days it is good to have something to smile about. I don’t have a dog, a cat or a canary. My smile is brought each day by that much maligned creature ­- a seagull.

Incidentally, have you ever seen better users of the air currents? They make The Red Arrows look like a bunch of amateurs.

This male bird has been coming for breakfast, which consists of my wife’s leftover porridge, bread and scraps mixed into a sludge, for the past seven or eight years.

He has now invited himself to lunch and evening meal. How he knows the times is a mystery.

If I take too long preparing his meal he will start to bang on the patio doors and then, in anger and desperation, tries to pull up a plastic drain cover to speed me up.

Up until now he has always dined alone but recently his new and younger “wife", his third or fourth we think, joins him, that is until he thinks she has had enough and gives her a good pecking.

Because of this unacceptable behaviour I have started putting out two piles, socially distanced two metres apart.

Initially they both go to their designated piles, then, when his pile is almost gone, he will run over to her pile and give her a loving peck. She will then run over to his. Honour satisfied.

I know there are many similar seagull tales out there and I also know you either love them or hate them. I’m in the former camp. My life would be much poorer without them.

Why? Because they provide me with hours of enjoyment. I can and often do sit and watch them soaring, diving, swooping or just floating high in the sky, never once flapping their wings. They appear to enjoy this freedom.

No wonder aeronautical engineers are starting to study their wing formations in flight for possible use in aircraft design.

John Armstrong

Address supplied