Seagull

I think they are beautifully ugly.

"Idea for a short story. The shore of a lake, a young girl who's spent her whole life beside it, a girl like you She loves the lake the way a seagull does, and she's happy and free as a seagull. Then a man comes along, sees her, and ruins her life because he has nothing better to do. Destroys her like this seagull here."
- Anton Chekhov, The Seagull

(well, that's not about birds, it's about us.<true,actually>)