The Pecking Order of Seagulls...

Mike and I were sitting on the beach today and we witnessed the pecking order of seagulls. A lone gull was standing about ten feet from us, he was a noisy gull, just yakking away. He was the only gull there for awhile then the rest of his clan showed up, there were about 7 gulls in all, he was clearly the most vocal. The whole clan was just kind of hanging around being gulls when apparently the noisy gull pissed off the HGIC ( head gull in charge ). The HGIC charged at the noisy gull and started to violently peck him and pushed him out of the circle of gulls. I don't speak seagull so I don't know if the noisy gull said something he shouldn't have, if the HGIC was having a bad day, or if the rest of them had just voted him off the island. One other gull almost got involved he started squawking at the HGIC but that didn't go well for him as the HGIC charged him, so he stopped. The noisy gull hung out on the outside of the group and slowly tried to reenter the group until the HGIC charged him again and started to peck him. The noisy gull tried this three times each with the same end result then he gave up and stayed on the outside. All of the gulls with the exception of the noisy gull finally flew away, the nosy gull was left behind. He stayed by us for most of the day, alone. Finally he flew off also when two dogs came on the beach and chased him, but he flew off alone.
I think there are four lessons learned from the gulls:
1) If you piss off the head gull in charge you might just get pecked to death.
2) Don't get involved unless your prepared to take a beating from the HGIC.
3) Follow the three strikes policy: Try 3 times to work your way back in and then cut your losses.
4) Once you are ousted from the clan, stay on the outside of the circle you might be alone, a little battered but you'll be alive.
Life lessons learned from seagulls, who would have thought?