"Overhead the ivory white gulls wheel and cry, flashing also in the purity of the sun and the clean, freshly washed air. Sometimes they glide to the blue-green surface of the harbour, squawking and garbling; at times almost standing on their pink webbed feet as if they would walk on water, flapping their wings pompously against their breasts like over-conditioned he-men who have successfully passed their body-building courses. At other times they gather in lazy groups on the rocks above the harbour's entrance, murmuring softly to themselves or looking also quietly out toward what must be Ireland and the vastness of the sea."
Alistair MacLeod in "The Lost Salt Gift of Blood" in "Islands, The Complete Stories"