ANIMAL STORY

It would seem that Scottish seagulls, in particular, are becoming domesticated. Not so far from Aberdeen, a City in Scotland, unjustly renowned for the parsimony of its inhabitants, on the same coast, is the town of St.Andrews, justly renowned for its Golf Course, and for being the home of Heidi the Heroine, the subject of another of Floyd's stories! (If you have not read it just ask and you shall receive.)

Heidi's human has a Grandmother, who also lives in St. Andrews, is aged 97, and regularly goes to visit her daughter in Dundee. For some time now there has been a relationship developing between Gran and a Seagull.

It started with a seagull helping himself to the porridge put out for Gran's cat, called Ethel. Naturally Ethel objected to this, and made her feelings known to Gran. It was quite a puzzlement for Gran, since the seagull took not a blind bit of notice of Gran trying to shoo him away from Ethel's dish. (It has always been assumed that such a stubborn character just had to be male!)

Gran, being a somewhat wise human, decided that the best approach was to put out two dishes - one on the ground, close to the back door, and the other on top of the inverted lid of a garbage can near the garden gateway. That way the needs of both of the creatures could be satisfied at the same time and there would be no need for either to complain.

Then the seagull just stopped dropping by. Several weeks passed and, quite early on, Gran reverted to a single dish system, giving no further thought to her presumably migrant visitor.

One morning, after a particularly wind swept night, Gran was going about her housekeeping chores when she heard a tapping noise. Thinking she had a visitor she took off her apron, checked that her hair was just so, and opened the front door. There was no sign of anyone either standing waiting or, indeed, walking along the street. Somewhat puzzled, and a little cross at being disturbed in the performance of her duties, Gran returned to her work. Again there was a tapping noise. This time Gran listened more carefully, and decided that it was coming from the kitchen. Sure enough, there she found a seagull, impatiently tapping on the window - demanding to fed!

Gran immediately prepared a dish of Porridge that she placed on the upturned dustbin lid (garbage can in US-speak), and before she was back in the house the Seagull was happily consuming the traditional Scottish breakfast.

After that, every day that the Seagull, now rejoicing in the name ‘‘Mr. Knocky’’, and Gran were both 'in residence' the tap of a beak on the kitchen window resulted in the Pavlovian response of Porridge on the Dustbin! I cannot, for the life of me, determine which was the conditioned and which was the conditioner - Gran or Mr.Knocky!

Gran was, as I said, frequently away in Dundee, and Mr. Knocky would absent himself for a few days or weeks now and then, but, apart from the interruptions caused by the absence of either party, for several years now all of Gran’s neighbours knew about Mr. Knocky and the established routine.

One day Mr. Knocky arrived as usual to demand his breakfast, only to find that there was no response to his determined request. He was, apparently, quite certain that Gran was ‘at home’. She had been providing him with porridge, without fail, for several days. She usually made it quite clear when she was going to be absent. There were fresh remains of some food in one of Ethel’s cat dishes and milk in another. Mr. Knocky was not such a birdbrain that he could not work out that something was wrong.

He rose into the sky, screaming his indignation for all of St. Andrews to hear. Then he swooped low, into the back garden of the house next door to Gran’s, still loudly protesting his anger, hunger and alarm. He rapped on that window, and roused the neighbour into action.

The neighbour realised who the bird was, and wondered why it was knocking on the wrong window. She waved it away two or three times, but it persisted in returning and making quite a disturbance in the normally peaceful neighbourhood. Finally losing patience, the neighbour put on her shawl and went to knock at Gran's door to complain about all the commotion the bird was causing.

But Gran did not answer.

Becoming alarmed, the neighbour peered through Gran’s windows, then rushed back to her own house and telephoned for the Police.

By the time a Police Car and two Policemen arrived, a small crowd had gathered outside of Gran’s house. They watched as one Officer broke a window and entered the house, and the other used his mobile phone to call for an Ambulance before entering through the door that his partner opened.

Before long the Ambulance arrived and a stretcher was taken inside. A few minutes later Gran was stretchered out and taken to Hospital. It transpired that Gran had suffered a severe fall, had become unconscious, and, but for the speedy response of the Emergency Services, might well have died.

“That bird saved her life,” the neighbour declared. “If it hadn’t pestered the life out of me, I don’t know what might have happened!”