Nantucket Seagull Smashes Car Window With A Clam — Talk About Fowl Play

A smashed window that initially appeared to be vandalism turned out to have natural causes, reports Boston.com. Vandals typically use rocks or hammers to break windows, but Nantucket police found a different implement of destruction in the back seat: a quahog, otherwise known as a hard clam. Seagulls typically pick up a quahog (not to be confused with Peter Griffin's hometown in nearby Rhode Island) from the ground and drop it from high in the air to break it open for a meal. Police say the bird likely missed the paved parking lot at the Wicked Island Bakery and accidentally hit the back window of general manager Heather Woodbury's car.

"He had seen all of the broken shells already from all the other quahogs that this apparent criminal seagull had dropped and eaten the meat out of, but he didn't get into the one that dropped into my car," Woodbury told WHDH. She also speculated that perhaps this was not an accident after all. "The jokes around town are just that the seagull did not get the morning buns, which is our signature item, and so it got angry and took it out on my car," Woodbury told WHDH. Angry human customers have been known to do this, and we've seen birds go on glass-smashing rampages before, so it's not unheard of.

An anonymous source has informed the Nantucket Current that there may be a connection between the senseless vandalism of Woodbury's car and a 2024 robbery. A seagull matching the vandalism suspect's description allegedly stole airport manager and man from Nantucket Noah Karberg's wallet from his shopping cart while at the local Stop and Shop grocery store. Video shows the suspect standing on a roof rifling through the wallet's contents. Unlike certain humans, the bird seemed uninterested in the cash as it blew away before taking flight with the wallet. (An Apple AirTag would have been a great way to track it down.)

The seagull suspected in that crime was never apprehended. It may feel emboldened and has now targeted Heather Woodbury. I've never had the pleasure of sampling the Wicked Island Bakery's morning buns, but if they're as good as the locals say they are, that would give the seagull the motive, means, and opportunity to perpetrate this crime against humanity.