Bonding with seagulls: Not as easy as it sounds

One of the things Mom and Dad like to do on their vacations up north is feed the seagulls.
Mom, especially, has grown fond of this.
She loves it because it's cheap entertainment and it's fun to watch how the birds behave.

One of her fondest memories is the year they had a car with a sun-roof. A seagull perched right on top of the sun-roof window. Mom looked right up and got a "close-up" view of the bird's rear end as it proceeded to poop all over the glass.
She loved that.
To this day, she gets all amused and excited when she tells the story.

Since we have plenty of seagulls down here in the southern part of the state too, I decided I wanted to give it a try.
Mom gave me some pointers.

"How do I get the bird to come eat?" I asked.

"They'll hear one bird squawking about how he found something tasty, and the rest will swoop down to check it out. Then they'll all squawk, and soon you'll be surrounded."

"But how does the first bird know where to find me?", I pressed, wondering if there was a secret bird code I needed to learn.

"Just park next to the lake and wait. When a seagull flies overhead, toss some food out. He'll make a U-turn and investigate."

"Hmm," I said, confused and slightly skeptical. "Why doesn't the first bird just keep his mouth shut so he can have all the food to himself?"

"Well," Mom said, "They're not that bright."

So I embarked on my bird-feeding mission, armed with stale bread and corn tortillas, looking forward to a great ravenous avian horde.

The first day (Wednesday), there were no gulls to be found.
The next attempt (Friday), still no gulls to be found.
The next day (Saturday), still nothing. I drove around to different parts of the lakeshores, unable to find even one seagull.
Finally, on Sunday, things changed.

Eventually I was able to accumulate a flock of about 20 seagulls, all of whom ate the bits and crumbs I threw. They'd fly away and come back, and fly away and come back. Each time there were a few more birds who wanted to get in on the free meal.
After they were full, they flew off and took a swim in the lake.

None of them said "thank you", but that's ok. I'm not bitter.
It's possible they said thank you in a different way, such as by NOT pooping on my car.

Incidentally, Mom has fed all kinds of things to seagulls. Everything from stale bread to french fries to dry cat food to soy-based vegetarian "pepperoni". Of all these things, the ONLY thing the birds have ever refused to eat was the soy-based vegetarian pepperoni.

The moral of the story, then, must be that even seagulls have standards.
.