The farmer brought me a gull. It had flown into the window of the cab on the man’s tractor.

Glass is like Kryptonite to a gull.

The ag-head thought the gull was a goner. He threw it into his pickup. He was going to check a field guide for identification. The gull came to in the truck. It flopped around a bit, but didn’t appear to be able to fly.

My morning had not yet shed its training wheels when the farmer brought the bird to me because he thought that I needed a gull.

I live in flyover land — not just for people from New York and Los Angeles, or just for black helicopters, but for gulls as well. Gulls do spend time here before their arrival at their destinations (lakes). They follow tractors that are busily altering the landscape. The gulls eat the grubs and other goodies the tractors free from the soil.

I was not then nor am I now a licensed wildlife rehabilitator (I don’t even play one on TV), but sometimes a man has to do what a man has to do — as long as his wife hasn’t told him otherwise.

My need for an injured gull wasn’t that great, but I don’t know how to be uninvolved. I took the gull gift in the spirit that it was given. I sympathized with the bird as I have walked into a glass patio door. It stung like the dickens. Curse that effective glass cleaner.

I didn’t know the sex of the bird, but I declared him a male based on his many disgusting habits. I named him Jethro Tull. The name meant nothing to the gull, as he wasn’t going to come no matter what I called him. He had a personality. Not unlike that weird cousin we all have with the cantankerous disposition who is confused by the plot twists in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Gulls have a reputation of being noisy creatures, but this one was a good listener.

I rigged up an old pigeon cage and the gull moved about his large-for-most-birds-but-small-for-him cage. It was a bed and breakfast for a gull. He was always happy to see me unless I didn’t bring food. I didn’t have any Purina Gull Chow on hand, but fortunately a gull will eat pretty much anything. I fed the gull some Wonder Bread — because it helps build strong bodies 12 different ways. I gave him corn and various kinds of large insects.

We bonded. I became more of a gull than I had been. This was a big improvement. The gull became more of a human — a possible step backwards for the bird.

The gull thrived. His strength returned. I think it was the Wonder Bread that did the trick. Jethro became very vocal. I don’t speak gull and his English wasn’t the best, but I concluded that he wanted to be returned to the wild. I examined his wings. They seemed to be in good shape. I reasoned that the gull’s problems could have been psychosomatic. He thought he couldn’t fly. I read books to the gull about the power of positive thinking. I made the determination that I would release him near the site of the accident. Free gully.

I drove my pickup, with the caged gull in the back, to the field where the gull had been injured. I have no doubt that Jethro considered it a return to the scene of the crime.

I opened the door of the cage. The gull did not venture out hesitatingly. He bolted through the exit. He circled over my head. Actually he figure-eighted over my head, squawking loudly.

The field wasn’t far from my house. For a few weeks, the bird would fly in and squawk until I fed him. He would figure-eight over my head. He made an odd sound that I didn’t hear from other gulls. He became my buddy. He would dip his right wing as a signal before landing upon my shoulder and nuzzling my ear. He whispered sweet nothings in my ear. He must have known that I had saved his life.

Then one day, he didn’t show up. I assumed he had migrated. I missed him.

Nearly a year passed. That’s what nearly a years do. Then one day, I was walking to my pickup, when I heard that odd squawking. I looked up and there was a gull doing a figure-eight over my head. Jethro! I rejoiced.

It flew closer and I smiled as I readied myself for my old friend to land on my shoulder.

It didn’t land on my shoulder.

It pooped right in my eye.

It probably wasn’t Jethro.

Hartland resident Al Batt’s columns appear every Wednesday and Sunday.