Graven image of a Black-tailed Gull, Kabu Island, Japan
Black-tailed Gulls make no secret of their love of small fish and crustaceans; but surprisingly, nor do they exert any effort to hide the fact that they'll step over any other seabird to get what they want. There is no editing war, for example, over the extremely blunt Wikipedia entry on Black-tailed Gulls, which outright accuses these birds of stealing. Perhaps they know there's no use trying to hide it. It may not be a stretch, then, to assume that this bird genius could have already been engullfed in a life of crime when it decided that small fry were no longer enough, moving on to the biggest catch of its life: Doritos.
Some are hailing this bird as a hero. Instead, I like to think of myself as the hero, for drawing much-needed attention to the fact that this is a Black-tailed Gull; as the birders in my readership will recognize, this blog entry marks the first reported sighting of a Black-tailed Gull in Europe. Some of you might be saying, "That's actually a Common Gull." To which I can only reply, "Ha!" and then go on to explain that not only did I spend many fond hours feeding potato chips to hungry Black-tailed Gulls while on a Seagull Cruise in Hachinohe, Japan, but that my understanding has also been enriched by the visit I paid the Hachinohe Marine Biology Museum.
Am I saying that this makes me a seagull expert? Well, you can trust me, or you can trust seagullexperts.com, or actually you could probably trust us both without contradiction; they don't seem to really have much of a position on gull identification. I actually recommend against trusting them, though, because I think the seagullexperts.com website might actually have been written by a seagull. In fact, bringing the nature of "reality" into question by putting it in quotation marks is a standard trick employed by gulls trying to gain trust by mimicking the quest for insight into a classically human question, "What is reality?" Of course, interjecting metaphysical doubt into the first paragraph on a Business Solutions website was a bit heavy-handed, even for a seagull. As well as "caw caw," this site screams "rank amateur!"
For that cross-section of readers who are both intrigued by the Tangy Cheese Doritos so loved by that charming Black-tailed Gull and who've come to rely on this blog for all their info on the global chip market (sorry), never fear: I may never have encountered this chip in my travels--possibly because it's been banned in several countries for deriving it's vibrant colouring from the potentially carcinogenic Sunset Yellow--but I'm not gonna leave U hanging. Here's an extremely thorough summary of the packaging, courtesy of Helium.com:
Tangy Cheese Doritos come in a bright orange bag, very noticeable to anybody looking on the shelves. On the front of the packet you have the Doritos logo, the D of Doritos is in a blue triangle and the I in Doritos is dotted with a triangle. Below that you have the flavour of your Doritos, again this is clearly visible from the colour of the packet but if you are new to Doritos this is where you find out the flavour. Then you have some Doritos crisps, they are triangular in shape and are orange, next to them is a picture of a block of cheese which has been sliced. The background of the packet is quite modern featuring orange 3d prisms everywhere which looks really sleek and gives the effect that the Doritos are bursting out of their packet. You also have a handy indicator of the nutritional values that your bag of Doritos contains. On the rear of the bag you have the ingredients and nutritional information. To prevent soft crisps the bag is made from a plastic foil like material to keep your crisps fresh (Helium.com).
As described.
