I learn much and find much amusement by watching critters work and play. I’ve learned that they have a well-developed sense of humor.

Oh, life can be serious of course, and finding enough food can be an all-encompassing effort for our critter friends, but there is so much more to their lives, including how they interact not just with us but with each other.

Birds that make their living in our local harbors serve as classic examples. They develop pecking orders, which usually become important when competing for food or space or reproductive mates. They also engage in some very humorous acts and I’ve learned to enjoy their sense of humor.

Whoever came up with the movie line “Mine! Mine!” as the total vocabulary for seagulls must have spent considerable time observing seagulls in the real world. I thought I was going die laughing when I watched that movie and heard that line repeatedly.

Some birds are full of grace and strength. Right near my charterboat a night heron foraged and hung out much of the time. It was a big male and he is impressive.

I’ve watched him hold motionless for the longest time and then make a lightning-fast dive at the water to come up with a flapping fish in its long and sharp beak.

Even when active (“active” being a relative term when discussing a night heron), he’s like the sloth of the bird community. But when he asserts himself with other birds, they get the heck out of his way, fast.

That powerful body and long sharp beak look impressive to other birds, and the night heron gets very snarly with them.

The great blue heron is our biggest harbor bird. These waist-high birds get a lot of respect from other birds, as well as most local critters.

I remember watching a very large cat walking along the dock towards a great blue heron, looking like it had predatory intentions. When the heron lifted its head and turned to look down at the cat, that cat froze in its tracks, then turned around and hurried back the way it had come.

Here’s a classic case of a sense of humor in a bird. We had one particular brown pelican we named Junior, who would visit our boat, along with two seagulls named, What and Up (together they are the “What Up” birds).

Junior became very comfortable with Capt. Tiffany, who ran charter boat WaveWalker with me. He learned that Tiffany wasn’t going to hurt him and I think he just took a liking to her.

The funny part was when she would bend over to tie a dockline, Junior would peck her right on the butt, then take off running down the dock like he was laughing his head off.

It happened often enough that I’m certain this was Junior’s way of sharing his sense of humor and friendship.

Birds are funny.