It all started, I believe, with Blue Eyes, who is the caretaker for all humanity and especially animals and birds.

The crows would appear every morning and stare in my back windows, as if they had ordered a meal and got bad service. She felt bad for them and started feeding them my stale bread and eventually my fresh bread, and somehow she conned me into buying bags of feed from Wal-Mart. (They like Ol’ Roy the best.)

The basic diet at Cobb Manor in the summer months is barbecued chicken. It’s a lot easier to toss the bones off the deck than bring them inside and add them to Camden’s special trash bags, now $1 each. It was our effort at recycling, even if it did startle a few neighbors.

The crows would make short work of the leftovers and everyone was happy, especially Blue Eyes.

Enter the damn sea gulls.

The gulls, I believe, can smell a barbecuing grill from several thousand feet above Earth. It didn’t take them long to catch on.

It was like “West Side Story” on the lawn, with feathers. The crows would always arrive first from their perches in backyard trees. They are so timid that they walked up to the food like it was going to explode. While the crows hesitated, a lone scout gull would swoop down and take over the situation. It was enough for the lone gull to make its signature screech to drive the timid crows away, even if the gull was outnumbered 10-1.

If a brave crow ventured too close to the food, the gull would take a quick run at the offender and drive him away while waiting for reinforcements. Soon the rest of the gull gang would arrive and gobble the food down just as fast as they could, bones and all. The crows just stared.

It was like the Red Sox and Yankees. You guess which ones the gulls were.

As long as the crows got an occasional bite before the gulls arrived, we left morning meals for our black neighbors. I always felt bad for them because they looked like they used to have arms and someone took them away.

That all changed last week. The gulls, as is their wont, got closer and closer and more aggressive. They would perch on the house and barn roof and scream for their leftovers while we were still eating. It was like a scene from “The Birds.”

That wasn’t bad enough. Things got worse.

To ease those CMP bills, I like to hang some clothing on the deck on sunny days. Some tenants have charged that it makes the place look like Appalachia. I am sure that Camden has some regulation against it.

During the four days of summer (it’s over now), I hung a few polo shirts on the deck. When I went out to retrieve them, one was decorated with gull gastrointestinal residue. There are few things more disgusting. They threw my charity back in my face, or at least onto one of my favorite shirts.

End of story.

The gulls and the crows are on their own now. I know that it is not the fault of the crows, who are far too timid to come near the house. But there will be no more leftovers, no bread, no chicken bones. Nothing.

Like solemn pallbearers they assemble every morning, search the grass and stare in the windows, uncomprehending. But I remain resolute.

War has been declared. Fort Sumter has been fired upon.

Send complaints and compliments to Emmet Meara at emmetmeara@msn.com.