Audouin’s Gulls

Audouin’s gull has recently seen its numbers bounce back from the catastrophic lows of the 1960s, and nowhere is this recovery more visible than on Deserta Island in the Algarve, home to the world’s largest breeding colony. Here, this majestic bird has found a sanctuary in the stunning landscape of this pristine island, located in Portugal’s Ria Formosa National Park.

I stare at the blinking cursor, my coffee cold by my side. Before I drag my eyes back over that first paragraph, I’ll check the Brief again.

“Alice,” it says, “we need that script by Friday. Forty-five seconds on Audouin’s gull, something hopeful for the end of episode three. And don’t forget that the narrator needs to cut back on the adjectives.”

But the narrator loves adjectives.

I delete majestic, stunning and pristine. Yes, that’s cleaner. And now for the part that’s going to end my career.

But for the juveniles leaving their colony, independence brings a rather different—

Diet? Lifestyle choice?

—approach to nutrition. Departing in search of food and fresh water, they navigate the coastline with unerring instinct, until at last they arrive at their destination.

According to the Brief, the narrator must offer authenticity and a genuine experience. Viewers want him right up there with the wildlife!

The Faro/Olhão Wastewater Treatment Station.

And he will fall in headfirst. Well done, Alice. You’ll be demoted to nematodes.

A water treatment facility may lack the romance of a coastal lagoon, but it offers something more valuable: abundance.

Abundance of what, Alice? Sewage.

Here, in the shadow of the settling tanks, the young gulls will spend the winter months.

This is bad. So bad.

And here, improbably, they will develop gout.

Gout. Stupid gulls. Stupid gouty gulls.

In humans, the disease is associated with excess and rich food. For birds barely out of the nest, it seems unjust.

I stare at the screen. Unjust is a great word.

I’m not going to mention the kidney parasites. I have standards.

I start typing: But there is hope—

Delete that. Forget hope. There’s none.

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Works cited:

João Almeida, Rute Noiva, Mário Quaresma, Luís Carvalho, and María Casero (2026). Gout as cause of morbidity and mortality of Audouin’s gull (Ichthyaetus audouinii) in southern Portugal. Journal for Nature Conservation, Volume 91, 127223.