Unbelievably gorgeous young black-back gull landed on the water in front of me this morning, thinking he might find something worth eating in a floating debris field there. Being a first-year, his wings weren't black yet, but still brown. He might not have been all that gorgeous, really, but the light was still red-toned (rosy-fingered dawn, youse all) and his feathers, which he took his time rearranging, showed off more colors of brown than I'd have thought he wore: tan, teak, chestnut, ecru, ochre, mahogany. And patterns: dots, spots, stripes wide and narrow, solids. Honestly, if I were a female black-back gull, my heart would have been thumping.