Some years we have terns on the river, and some we don't. Right now we have a bunch. They work very hard, terns. They fly, wheel, swoop, dive, and burst up out of the water, catching a fish maybe every tenth dive. It's hard to see how a tern can take in enough calories in fish to make up for what it expends in fishing.

Gulls, on the other hand, sit on pilings and wait for french fries to float by.

Now, it would be nice if there were a work-ethic lesson in this. But terns don't have a better life than gulls by any water-bird definition. They're not more numerous, or bigger, or smarter. (And if they were smarter, where would that get them?) This isn't the Grasshopper and the Ant, or the Tortoise and the Hare. Each of these species has an ecological niche to fill. The tern's requires constant work, and the gull's requires sitting around. And, to quote Kurt Vonnegut, so it goes.