Proud Parent

For the last 2 years, herring gulls have nested and raised a youngster behind the chimney of the house two doors away. They have gone one better this year and produced 2 balls of fluffy feathers. Hopefully it was less of a surprise for them than it was to me - until looking at the photos, I thought there was only one. So here they are, probably a couple of weeks old, able to stand up but not walk around yet.

The mouths of the little 'uns are open because they are screaming their heads off. The adult opened its mouth silently for a couple of seconds in what looked suspiciously like a yawn. A yawn because it was fed up with the incessant screaming of its offspring? Or because the little 'uns are the sort of babies that keep parents awake at night and permanently tired during the day?

K3 + DA*300mm + 1.4TC.

Thoughts, comments, messages to the proud parents etc. welcome as usual.




Steve

So cute.......


...until they start pinching your chips

Getting ready to regurgitate something for their dinner?

I bet they wake up the neighbours early, sunrise if you're lucky ? There must be a regular food source nearby, perhaps someone feeding them?

Not as far as I could tell. I hung around waiting to see what might happen, but nothing did. Come to think of it, I've never seen the adults feed their young in previous years. Perhaps they do it when they're tucked away behind the chimney.
Dawn every day... and 1am a couple of nights ago.
Gulls moved into my area when rubbish was being put out in black bags and stayed when bins replaced bags. Weymouth seafront is about 5 miles away, a reliable source of chips and other fast food for gulls. There are regular mass movements of gulls to and from the coast. And some gulls seem to find interesting things in nearby fields, particularly when ploughing is underway.

Steve

That is a seriously sharp combo

and the parents dive bomb you or release the white stuff!