At Belgium's annual seagull screeching competition, the birds are the squawk of the town

Beachgoers know the seagull as either feathered friend or foe, swooping in for a French fry or potato chip, an old piece of bread. But they’re actually quite smart, and they’re just trying to live. In an effort to teach people more about the beach-loving birds and maybe even inspire greater affection, Claude Willaert, who works in Belgian coastal education and comedy, created the European Gull Screeching Championship in 2020. Held in De Panne, a Belgian beach town, the competition started as a local event, but has since expanded to include 70 people from 14 different countries. It recently celebrated its fifth anniversary.

Seagulls can be a polarizing group, but scientists say they shouldn’t bear so much of our ire. "They're very charismatic creatures and definitely get a bad rap for sometimes aggressive behaviour in the breeding season," scientist Emma Caulfield told the BBC in 2024. "But they are part of our natural world and they're just taking advantage of the hand that's been dealt them." The hand in question is having to fend for themselves when their environments keep shrinking as humans occupy more and more space in their natural habitats. What we see as sneaky snack stealing is actually a mode of survival. As Gull Screeching Championship juror and Flanders Marine Institute representative Jen Seys told the CBC, “their sounds, their calls and their acrobatic behaviour, it's just part of the sea coast. So you need to balance that. We need some more sympathy for the seagulls." So for Willaert, the competition became a way to teach people to embrace the seagull in a new way, to “make sea gulls sexy again,” as he told the Times.

Though the instructions appeared simple–register online, then “screech and behave as a seagull” at the event in Belgium–participants went all out, donning costumes, makeup, feathers, and beaks, even performing tricks like snatching snacks out of a bag of treats, birthing a baby seagull puppet from an egg, and spreading their wings in handmade costumes.

Participants were then graded by five judges, which included scientists, local conservationists, and legislators, according to The New York Times, which added that “each jury member can give up to 15 points for the screech and five points for behavior, for a possible total score of up to 100 points.” There were also three categories, for adults, children, and "colony," or groups. People wound up at the event for a variety of reasons, and it turned out all of the winners had their own relationships to seagulls.

Juvenile category winner Cooper Wallace, from the UK, “launched his screeching career after he was pecked by a seagull when he was younger,” according to the BBC. At 10, this was his second competition victory, having also won last year. His younger sister placed fourth.

Adult category winner Anna Brynald, of Denmark, was brought there by grief. After her best friend passed way, she “couldn't see the meaning in life," she told the CBC. "Then I remembered that's the beautiful [thing]. If there isn't any meaning in life, that means I can do literally everything I want. I can make seagull sounds, because I don't care. I [might not be] here tomorrow. I just want to do what's fun and not think about what other people think about me."

And the group winner, Gabbiani Partigiani, which translates to “Partisan Seagulls,” were there as part of a project by the art collective Generazione Disagio (“Generation Discomfort”). Inspired by the freedom of the seagulls, the project sought to celebrate Italians’ freedom from facism–the event was held two days after Italy’s Liberation Day; before the competition, Gabbiani Partigiani also participated in the Liberation Day parade and a flash mob to advocate for freedom for all. “We want a playful and nature-loving Europe, which guarantees everyone a dignified life and which meets to dress up as a seagull and chatter over a beer, instead of talking about rearmament, wars and closed borders,” the organization wrote on YouTube, translated from Italian.

So in both metaphor and reality, the seagull means a lot more than even a simple squawk can express. Here’s to bringing together birds of feather, whether it’s in Belgium, at the bar, on the beach, or all of the above.