What’ll We Find Next on the Beach?

One glorious late September day I went to the beach with Meredith, Judah, and Emma. It was a stolen day granted to me by the winds and water of Hurricane Florence. School, and life, in general, had been tragically disrupted for so many people but by dent of a house on high ground in New Bern, N.C.; it meant an unexpected visit from my beach companions as they waited for the waters to subside and school to restart. (Little did we know Emma would be waiting a total of 26 days.)
As often happens on the fall days on our beach, it seems as if the best that God has to offer is saved for the locals who are blessed beyond measure to call this shifting spit of sand home.  I can’t tell you about it; you just have to be there! It will restore your soul after that ill temper you might have been fighting all season. We trundled down between the overhanging branches of bayberry bushes and the ever-growing dune line, watching carefully not to tangle with the most wicked “prickers” that exist in the world. They are there to cause mothers to say, “Don’t forget your flip-flops,” and to teach a valuable lesson of obedience if a child doesn’t heed the warning.
An empty beach, sand as soft and white as powdered sugar greeted us at the end of the path. Our fellow beachgoers were of the winged and screeching kind. Water as warm as the best day in the summer invited wading, surfing and close examination of sea life teeming in the wave-washed sand.
Then Emma spotted something firmly attached to the leg of one of our gull friends, one who seemed rather bold and happy to hang around us. At first, we thought it had gotten tangled in some plastic and couldn’t get if off, but as we got closer it was evident that the “bracelet” was a green tag with a number – U74.
Why? How? Who? All those questions swirled between us and fired my imagination.
Now I think good old U74 is part of a project called The Gulls of Appledore that began in Maine in 2004. He and his relatives were banded and set out to go their way in the world. Some were banded as “chicks,” others as juveniles or adults. The good folks in Maine are doing studies on the life and times of seagulls. They like to know where they go (almost everywhere from Maine to Texas) and what they think of the accommodations along the way. People like us who spot these banded bandits (who has not lost a sandwich to their wily ways on the beach?) are making reports with pictures if possible back to the website in Maine.
I only want to know about U73 and U75, because U74 was looking for his siblings as he scoured the beach in Wildwood Crest. Now I can recognize the lonely look in his eye as a plea for information about his family.  I have located U77, his closest relative, last seen at Manasquan Beach, Aug. 5, 2015.  It’s not much to go on, but at least I can report that he is not alone in this world. If you spot any of these banded gulls, please let the folks in Maine know because U74 is still out there looking for family. 
What’ll we find next on the beach?  Please go down and report back.