John Luther Adams – "One That Stays All Winter" (Album: Earth And The Great Weather) – Disturbing Seagulls

As I usually do when listening to unknow sound pieces, I try to fully embark while listening and close my eyes to just imagine scenes or little movies that fit what I listen to. 
With this piece, I immediately felt like I was standing at a harbor-like place in some rather small city at the Baltic Sea. The piece “One That Stays All Winter” starts out by portraying what sounded to me like bird sounds.  It is morning and the cold and frosty wind harshly brushes my face. I look up into the winter sun that does not seem warm and yellow but rather white and too bright for my eyes. I squint and look away. I see lots of seagulls circling and twitching around the sky, looking out for the next person eating fish and chips that they could attack. Although seagulls usually have a somewhat aggressive attitude in my opinion and although they make disturbing and loud sounds, the whole scene does have a peaceful touch to it. As disturbing as the bird sounds are, they get interrupted by an even more disturbing sound: a siren of an approaching fishing boat entering the harbor (1:05). 

The sounds blend together and the scene that I previously described and experienced as peaceful enhances into a stressful sound situation. As if the two sounds were not enough, I suddenly also hear the people around me talking about their observations of the scene at the harbor (ca. 2:45). I come to recognize that they speak in different languages (ca. 2:45) but I cannot make out, how they experience the situation, as I only hear scraps of their conversations. I get distracted, as I seem to not be too interested in their observations and the siren comes into focus again. I also fade out the chirping seagulls and concentrate on the siren (6:40), that does not seem to stop although the boat has already anchored and some of the fishermen have unboarded. Apparently, nobody really feels responsible for turning the annoying sound off. Also, nobody seems to care or recognize it as too disturbing. Another siren, that has not been in my sound system until now, arises (7:05). I try to find out where it is coming from and see a small transporter/caddy coming from the inner city into the direction of the harbor. The transporter is carrying a small trailer full of nets and things I have never seen before but just shortly crosses my sight and vanishes quickly into a different direction where I cannot hear it anymore (7:38). I stop and think and come to realize that the other siren has also stopped while I was busy following the transporter. I look up to the sky to check for the seagulls but they have also disappeared, including their chirping sounds. Where did they go? I ask myself if they maybe decided to go somewhere warmer, like other migratory birds would. I imagine seagulls in a jungle like area, feeling totally out of place but adapting to the different chirping sounds around them and not yelling anymore, but singing, twitching, and sitting on big green palm leaves (8:00).