Spring beauty splashed the park with color. As I approached the duck pond I heard a cacophony of calls. A flock of gulls hovered and bounced over the grass next to the pond. Black wing tips on light-gray wings and a black ring around the bill defined the ring-billed gulls. Moving away slightly as I approached, they paid little attention to me as they continued their conversations. I stepped behind a park sign, using it as a partial blind and watched. Armed with recent learning about gull body language, I tried to interpret.

The males, heads held high and wings pushed forward, approached other males. When the approach failed to communicate “Back off; this is mine,” the males spread their wings, flying at each other. A female bird followed each male, relaxed, fluffing and preening her feathers, sometimes tossing her head and begging for food in the courting behavior. One male gull with no female in tow would not give up. He continued to approach one couple. The female paid no attention. The male drove him off, but not very far.

Suddenly the gulls took to the air as one, calling loudly and circling the pond. I had not moved. I looked around for danger. A black truck drove by. Within minutes the gulls landed in the same spots. The lone male landed near the same couple.

Now it was tranquil. Six gull couples rested on the pond edge, each about ten feet from their nearest neighbors. Each couple had waterfront property. All was quiet except for a few squawks from the single male whom the couple tolerated within their ten-foot property boundaries, but no closer than a foot away from the other male. A little boy ran toward the gulls. Several flew up over the water for a minute, then resettled where they had been.

I moved slowly toward the birds. They did not stir. I quietly approached the couple at the end of the pond. They watched but did not raise their heads high in the alert posture. At four feet they filled the camera frame. I clicked; then, talking softly, backed away, grateful they had allowed me so close.

Much in nature is not right. Animals attack and kill each other. Coupling is often haphazard and chaotic. Fear and competition for resources appear to rule. Yet isn’t humanity supposed to rule? “You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet: all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.” Psalm 8:6-8, NIV.

We talk of protecting the environment. Why destroy the art of God? Yet maybe God intends something more than simply preserving the status quo. Perhaps he intends us to be so radiant with Christ’s love that our mere presence among the animals creates peace and order. “The wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the kid,… a little boy will lead them…They will not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain.” Isaiah 11:6-9.

Aletha Gruzensky Pineda writes from College Place, Wash.