It was standard "information for newcomers" when I arrived at college in the Boston area to warn "DON'T LOOK UP AT THE GULLS."

It seems that they have very good eyesight, they selectively see "eyeballs," and take offense at being "stared at."

It's rumored that one frat house decided to test the theory, and took a group of new pledges for test subjects down to the pier. The "test report" circulated later indicated that pledges assigned to "pick out a gull and look directly at it for at least 30 seconds" were "accurately targeted and hit" 234.732 times as frequently as the control group who stood beside them and looked only at their own shoes.

Recent reports have claimed that flocks of crows (and others similar) can learn to recognize and distinguish between individual people who have "disturbed" them and others who are no threat, or are friendly. Perhaps it was a rental car and a previous user had scared a few birds off some road kill. (Or maybe the current guest threw a few rocks at some?)

[One report claims that the professor who reported studying the ability of crows to recognize specific individuals was asked by "official sources" whether he could train a flock to recognize Osama, back when that was a concern. He sort of claimed he could, but none were deployed as far as we've been told.]

John