Watching the Birds - where ideas for stories come from

I've been out walking on the beach this morning. The sun was shining but there was a bitterly cold wind from the North. The chill factor was definitely living up to its name.
Watching the sea birds, though, made me think of how very like humans they are in their behaviour.
As I walked along this morning, the elegant Oystercatchers were in their own little group, busy digging in the wet sand for whatever creatures Oystercatchers eat (apart, presumably, from oysters). Nearby were a group of sea gulls, jostling each other and squawking at the top of their voices. Now and then one of them would advance on an Oystercatcher and chase it away. The Oystercatchers had enough of this treatment after a while and took off in an orderly group for a quieter part of the seashore. Some minutes later a bunch of crows decided to join the sea gulls and their raucous voices made themselves heard above the screaming of the gulls. They were still warring with each other when I left them behind and continued on my way. It didn't look as if either party was going to give up ground or indeed score a win over the other party.

 

I'm afraid the picture doesn't do justice to the scene as I couldn't get too close without frightening them all away and anyway my camera isn't very powerful, but you get the idea. Here is another picture of my route which turned out a little better:

 

 

To return to the theme of this blog, I should say that I found plenty in the behaviour of the birds to develop a story on fights over territory or disputes among neighbours. Plenty of ideas there for the importance of setting boundaries, of being tolerant, and of the challenges if the main character in a story had to leave his/her environment because of unfavourable circumstances.
All in all, it was a thoroughly enjoyable walk with plenty of food for future plots.