I had similar thoughts in mind one day in November during a violent coastal storm while watching some gulls, ringed-bill and herring, together with a few shore birds, that were gathered at the head of an inlet along a relatively sheltered part of the Bay. The Outer Beach was of a violence that day which could hardly be approached, either on foot or in contemplation. Even here the storm winds were relentless, hard and cold, flicking and driving the sands along the shore, whipping the marsh waters behind it into a froth. Sanderlings made short, low, flying hops back and forth, but were unable to do their usual free hurrying and basket-swinging flights along the shore. The gulls stood in shallow water facing the wind, water that was being whipped and lashed, and sometimes they would drop down sideways a little before the wind’s force, thrown slightly off balance, acting like a man who has been cut across the face. Taking to the air just above the ground they would find difficulty in maneuvering and were forced back, sometimes fifty feet or more, to continue standing where they dropped back to the ground; but even in this they showed a certain supple power, a control aware of its limits, the sinewy economy of wings lifted in the wind, the plain sky beauty of feathers gray and white. The storm was ending, although the water was still being whiplashed into foam. The light was very cold and the sky line was heaped with sunset fires. Surely everything, everywhere, was vulnerable, and yet it was that bird closeness to such primal powers as might seem to us bitter, alien, and cruel--the gods of the north, of the waters and the winds--that gave them an essential balance, a rightful place. That great sky of theirs was unexplored. It came down to me that regardless of what he learns, there is so much for a man to go on asking. What can birds tell you, other than displaying those traits of aggression, or fear, or mutual attraction, which we may recognize when observing their behavior? We have a little fear in ourselves, when looking on, that we may go too far in mixing up our own traits and terms with theirs; but each will manage to keep his territory, untransgressed by the other, and each takes part in the high order of nature. Watching the birds, I have seen ceremony, ritual, love-making, display, all worthy of admiration by the most glittering of human cultures. The speech of men and the speech of birds do not divide us altogether. In silence is unity. Perhaps the most eloquent thing about birds is that which we will probably never learn to decipher. In his study of puffins, R. M. Lockeley refers to their “subtle, silent-gesture language.” That language is part of a still more silent order, the dark realm of existence where all their actions and necessities have their play. Approach with patience and with care.