Another large gull here is the herring gull. I saw one of the winter plumage ones quite close on a fence the other day (or maybe it was a black-backed one? either way...), and it was humungous. I think it was larger than some people's little dog breeds! As with the other gulls, I get to see these on a regular basis near my home, and I hope to get to spend more time watching them on days when it's less rainy--and it also helps to watch them when the tide is low. That's when they congregate on the little areas of land that you can see when the tide is low, and you can actually walk on them, too. I constantly see people searching for things (I'm not sure what, most of the time), some with metal detectors. But I think if I go that close, they won't really want to hang out there unless I feed them, and if I do that, I'm setting myself up for getting pooped on! No thanks!
I was able to get a photo of one in summer and winter plumage. I'm not expert enough to know if it's 1st or 2nd winter plumage, but it's not a full adult yet is all I know. I guess the adult I got is just at the end stages of reaching adulthood as I notice it still has a bit of the brown mottling on its neck.
I have also included a small album below. You can see them in stages of flight as well as an older one looking like it wants to give a lecture to a younger one. I should mention that I like the photo of the gull with the piece of what appears to be a slice of baguette. Suddenly everyone wanted to be its friend and steal the bread away. I actually couldn't even follow what happened to it because I think the gull eventually dropped it, and I don't know if another gull was successful in stealing it away. It should have known better than to bring back a huge piece of food like that to the place where dozens of other gulls are. How did it think it was going to get to eat there peacefully?
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