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 their son turned into "feathers and bones." After obeying the 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 his Pack at breakfast, but manages not to hit them. In the afternoon he manages to make several aerobatics. In the evening, another council of the Pack gathers. The oldest tells Jonathan to go into the middle of a circle formed by seagulls. It 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 rest of his days Jonathan spends alone. Every day he learns something new and learns to apply his skills, searching for food. He does not miss the Pack and lives a "long, happy life."
Part two
Jonathan is getting old. Once, two shining, snow-white gulls appear near his wings, who can fly no worse than he does. Seagulls say Jonathan that they are from his Pack, and 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 of the Pack explains to Jonathan that this world is not heaven at all, but heaven is "not a place and not a time, but the achievement of perfection." Jonathan will approach perfection when he learns to fly at the speed of thought. The oldest already knows how, and Jonathan asks to teach him.
After some time, Jonathan realizes that he is created perfect and his possibilities are endless. He 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 of 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. Sullivan tries to dissuade him but in vain. One fine day, Jonathan returns home and finds Fletcher, a 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, and 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 hearing the teacher.
A month later, Jonathan decides to return to the Pack. Although the students are opposed, they fly after the 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 teaching.
Over time, students begin to listen to Jonathan attentively, and at night they are surrounded by young gulls from the Pack - they are also interested in listening to the mentor. One month after returning, the Pack youths begin to go over 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 the mentor a god.
After a week, misfortune occurs with Fletcher, he crashes into granite rock at the highest speed. Already in another world, Jonathan catches up with him and offers a choice: to stay at this level or return home. Fletcher comes 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, and then Jonathan's body begins to shine with a ghostly light. It melts in the air, and Fletcher begins to train beginners.
