The day 'sea' gull cry had me in a flap

A FAMILY beach picnic serenaded by lapping waves and lilting gull cries was hardly the time or place for a half-term lesson on seabird ecology and my three grandchildren’s eyes began glazing over as I started lecturing them on why our most maligned birds should be loved not loathed.

- Stuart Winter

Mention of the dreaded S-word had put me in a flap after the trio witnessed a holidaymaker being relieved of a doughnut by a demonic creature with evil eyes and razor-sharp beak - a ‘seagull!’ they said

“Gull, we call them gulls! Never, never seagulls,” I pontificated with the same zeal I had once reprimanded an American for having the temerity to say soccer rather than football.