This morning I went for a hike at Point Dume in Malibu and came across this group of birds just hanging out. The waves rolled in and they would just watch. Sometimes when the waves came too close for comfort they would scoot back a bit and resume doing nothing. It seemed like they were waiting for something to start; trying to save good seats for whatever action was going to happen at the beach.

It’s Sunday morning, what could they be waiting for…oh the Super Bowl! Then I remembered the 49er fans I saw last night setting up chairs getting ready to camp out in front of the San Francisco Saloon in West Los Angeles so they could get the best seats for the big game. If those 49er fans could have made some type of arrangement with these birds to hold their seats, I think that could have been mutually beneficial. 49er fans could have gotten a good night’s sleep and the birds could have scored some easy fish in exchange.

Then again California brown pelicans and western gulls are pretty messy. 49er fans could have ended up with some major clean up work to do the next morning. And of course you couldn’t ask a sanderling to save your seat because they are always running all over the place and probably aren’t very reliable. To make this work, you would have to chose your bird seat-saver wisely and bring soap, towels and buckets the next morning.