This morning when I parked near the Eastern Market Metro entrance to get a cup of tea at Starbucks, I heard angry noises over my head. Three sea gulls were flying angrily around the metro entrance park loudly squawking at each other.
I tried to rememebr if I'd ever seen sea gulls on Capitol Hill before. Maybe once. I am not quite sure. It has certainly not been a common memory.
Then I remembered the Reliable Source column in the Washington Post written by Roxanne Roberts (of Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me! fame) and Amy Argetsinger.
I happen to be an ardent fan of the Reliable Source column, although I do force myself to read the real news before I read the gossip.
The Reliable Source often reports on celebrities who come to Capitol Hill to lobby for various causes, arts funding or global health, for example.
The Reliable Source calls then celebvocate.
It occurred to me the sea gulls might have been in town to do some lobbying or celebvocating. Maybe they were advocating for less stringent rules about the disposal of garbage on the beaches or the disposal of fish killed by commercial fishing boats.
I did discover a news story about an owl capturing and eating a sea gull on Capitol Hill, but it turned out to be the Capitol Hill in Seattle, not the neighborhood where I live.
Or maybe the oceans are rising and we are now living closer to sea gull country than we used to.
When I saw the gulls at 18th and M Sts NW in February once, an old timer told me that gulls coming in that far from the water meant the weather would change soon. He suggested that their presence meant spring would be early that year. Sorry I don't remember if it was.
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