Seagull With Crucifix

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31659, 20 April 1968, Page 14

Seagull With Crucifix

(N.Z. Press Association! AUCKLAND, April 19. A seagull with a gold crucifix around its neck? Mr C. H. Gratten, a railways foreman, watched in surprise as a flock of seabirds settled at the diesel repair yards, Parnell, this week. One gull seemed to have a piece of string around its neck and then Mr Gratten saw something glinting in the sun. “When the gull came

close I could see there was a gold crucifix set with a red stone hanging on the bird’s breast,” he said. After seeing a newspaper picture of the bird today Mrs T. Wilton rang the newspaper to say that almost seven years ago she found a seagull wounded by an air rifle slug on Point Chevalier beach. She took it to her home in Quentin Avenue, Epsom, and there it stayed for five years. It made great friends

with Mrs Wilton’s cat, sharing bed and food. Mrs Wilton called the gull Odmldod after a children's cartoon character. A little girl came to visit one day and. playing with the seagull, tied a small, inexpensive cross loosely about its neck. A few days later the bird vanished. Commenting on efforts by Mr Gratten to catch the bird Mrs Wilton said she would rather see the seagull go free . . . “He’ll be much happier.”