: Seagull wants to spend his life not in search of food, but in comprehending flight. Exiled from the pack, he dies and attains perfection in heaven. Sacrificing heavenly life, she returns to teach the flight of relatives.

Part one

A net with a bait is thrown from a fishing vessel, and a flock of seagulls flies “to get food crumbs by cunning or force”. Only one seagull named Jonathan Livingston makes its training flights in complete solitude. Jonathan violates all the unwritten laws of the Pack - hangs in the air, flies low over the water and develops tremendous speed. He is trying to bring his flying skills to perfection.

Jonathan neglects the main occupation of seagulls - the extraction of food. His parents are worried, because from their son "feathers and bones remained." After obeying persuasion, Jonathan lives a week like the rest of the seagulls, but then he realizes the meaninglessness of such an existence and returns to training. The whole next week, he learns to fly at high speed, but nothing comes of it.

One day, rapidly descending from a great height, Jonathan strongly hits the water and faints. Recovering, he hears a voice saying that Jonathan is just a seagull, not born for high-speed flights.He decides to reconcile and return to the Pack, but on the way home he finds a solution: speed can be controlled by reducing the length of the wings. Forgetting the failure, he trains and achieves success.

In the morning, Jonathan accidentally crashes into a flock of breakfast, but manages to manage. In the afternoon he manages to make several aerobatics. In the evening, another Pack gathers. The oldest tells Jonathan to go into the middle of a circle formed by seagulls. This is "either the greatest shame, or the greatest honor." He expects praise, because he succeeded in something that not a single gull had done before him. However, the Elder condemns Jonathan to exile on the Far Cliffs for violating the dignity and customs of the Seagull Family.

The seagull spends the rest of his days alone. Every day he learns something new and learns to apply his skills, earning food. He does not yearn for the Pack and lives a "long happy life."

Part two

Jonathan is getting old. One day, two shining, snow-white gulls appear near his wings, who can fly no worse than he does. Seagulls say that Jonathan is from their Pack, and they call him home. Rising above the clouds, Jonathan also becomes snow-white and radiant. He finds himself in another world and decides that it is heaven, a paradise for gulls. Jonathan begins to forget about his past life.

The Pack lives here too. All birds train relentlessly. Their goal is to achieve perfection. The mentor, the snow-white gull of Sullivan, says birds like Jonathan are the rarest exception. Typically, seagulls move to another world, almost unchanged, so each next world is slightly different from the previous one.To become like Jonathan, ordinary gulls have to go through tens of thousands of worlds and live tens of thousands of lives. The oldest Pack explains to Jonathan that this world is not heaven at all, and heaven is "not a place and not a time ... this is the achievement of perfection." Jonathan will approach perfection when he learns to fly at the speed of thought. The oldest one already knows how, and Jonathan asks to teach him.

After some time, Jonathan realizes that he is created perfect and his possibilities are endless. It instantly moves to a planet with two suns. Now Jonathan is learning to move in time. The day is coming when the feathers of the Elder begin to shine even more dazzlingly. He disappears, telling Jonathan: "Try to understand what love is."

Soon, Jonathan begins to remember his old Pack. It seems to him that a seagull might have appeared there, deciding to "break out of the shackles of its nature." Perhaps this gull was also expelled. Jonathan increasingly wants to return to earth. In vain Sullivan dissuades him. One fine day, Jonathan returns home and finds Fletcher’s seagull, who was sentenced to exile. He becomes the first student of Jonathan.

Part three

Fletcher Lind is eager to fly and becomes an almost perfect student. By the end of the third month, Jonathan had six more students, all six - “Exiles, carried away by a new strange idea: to fly for the joy of flying.” In the evenings, Jonathan tries to teach them the idea of ​​comprehensive freedom, but the students exhausted during the day fall asleep without listening to the teacher.

A month later, Jonathan decides to return to the Pack. Although the students are opposed, they fly for a mentor. The oldest orders not to pay attention to the Exiles. For some time, Jonathan sees only the gray backs of his fellow tribesmen, but does not attach any importance to this. He continues to teach.

Over time, students begin to listen to Jonathan more closely, and at night they are surrounded by young gulls from the Pack - they are also interested in listening to a mentor. One month after returning, the Pack youth begins to move on to Jonathan. One of the seagulls, Kirk Maynard, has a broken wing, but he wants to fly and asks Jonathan for help. Jonathan tells him: "You are free ... and nothing can stop you." Kirk spreads his wings and rises into the sky in front of the amazed Pack. Pupils begin to consider a mentor a god.

After a week, misfortune occurs: Fletcher fails to control and crashes into granite rock at high speed. Already in another world, Jonathan catches up with him and offers a choice: to stay at this level or return home. Fletcher is back. Seeing that he is not dead, the Pack decides that Jonathan is either the Devil or the Son of the Great Seagull. After this incident, Fletcher masters instant movements.

Jonathan soon decides that the Pack no longer needs him. He instructs Fletcher: “Continue your search for yourself, ... try every day at least one step closer to the true omnipotent Fletcher. He is your mentor. ” Then Jonathan's body begins to shine with a ghostly light, it melts in the air, and Fletcher begins to train green beginners.