Usually I don't give Silver Gulls the time of day. If I go out to take photos and there are only gulls hanging around, I shrug my shoulders, say, "Nothing to see here," and move onto greener pastures. What can I say? Seems like I'm specist!
But I do have some great childhood memories of Silver Gulls or sea gulls as we used to call them. We lived next to a spare block which I spent a good deal of my days riding my bike around and around and around, my boombox in the basket, the soundtrack to Flashdance blaring loudly 😂 But when stormy days hit, those days where you can actually feel the light disappear and the clouds are that green/black colour and everything just feels menacing and beyond gloomy, just bad I guess, those were the days that the gulls would arrive en masse.
Now we lived about 20 minutes from the ocean and it was my dad's theory that on those sorts of days the sea was too rough for the gulls so they would head inland. We also lived about 10 minutes from the local tip so that might have also had something to do with the sheer number of gulls around, but regardless, when the clouds closed in and the wind picked up, I would run inside, stealing a few slices of bread to break into bite sized pieces for the birds (this was in the days before we knew how bad bread is for wildlife). I'd spend ages throwing the bread high into the air to get the gulls' attention and watch as they wheeled through the sky to catch them on the fly. But after that, nothing.
Until today. Today was overcast and cold. We wandered around some rock ledges, hoping for whales and getting wet as the tide came in. And then I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, a lone gull repeatedly picking something up and dropping it again. Something smallish and round, blown up like a little balloon. A poor little Smooth Toadfish (by the looks). The gull would pick it up, the fish, which was super slippery would woosh back out of it's beak and bounce along the rocks. The gull would walk over to it, pick it up again and the whole process would happen again. After a couple of minutes of this, the gull eventually gave up and went and found something more appetising to eat.
As someone currently sporting a round shape, I'm taking that gull's disgust personally! 😂
Silver Gull
Coledale
