Watch the birdie..

Hi all,

I thought I'd bore you all with another birdy picture, this time a Herring Gull, more commonly known to us brits as a seagull. This one still has some juvenile plumage, and flew straight at me yesterday, while I took.. ahem.. a few piccys down at the seaside. I got a few other breeds as well, and once I've rejigged the coding on my site, I'll link to a gallery.. but for now you're lucky enough just to get the one.




1/500 sec @F5.6 | 100-300FA (300 ~ 450mm equiv) | ISO 200 | crop [3008x2000 to 2720x1432]

It was taken from a cliff-top coastal path, hence being above it looking down into the sea. A handy background.

I spent Saturday trying to get a publishable (for my site.. not real publishing) picture of a Red Kite but have so far failed with around 400 attempts. I will keep trying. If you are fairly local to Stokenchurch in Oxfordshire and would like the opportunity, you shouldn't take long to find one.. it's akin to finding pigeons in Trafalgar Square.. so I have little excuse.

BTW, I've never been a birdwatcher.. all this is down to George's fantastic picture a few weeks ago, of a bird landing in the water.. so if you want to blame someone.. blame George..

Cheers

Liam

LiamD said:
I've always thought of them as rats with wings...
nice shot though...

Thanks Don,



It's all a matter of context though.. when they're gracefully flying above the cliffs, or gliding effortlessly over the surf, they're beautiful..BUT.. if they're trying to nick my chips on a cold and windy Winter day.. then they're pests. All a matter of priority.

As long as they leave my chips alone they can do what they want..

Cheers

Liam

You sure its not a stealth pigeon ?

Great pic, I like the top down view.

BTW, I live in High Wycombe, about 5 miles from Stokenchurch. The sky is full of Red Kites over there because its where about 20 pairs were released some years ago and boy have they multiplied. I stopped the car one day last summer and although they were circling on a thermal, I counted 28 birds. I get them flying through my back garden quite often but I've never got the right lens on the camera at the time. I'd love a shot of a pair, one passing food to the other. I think the male drops food and the female turns upside down in the air to catch it. Superb spectacle, but again, I've never got the camera with me when I see it. If they keep multiplying at the rate they are going they will soon revert to a pest species, which is why they were killed off in the first place (not that I agree with killing birds of prey, although they are actually scavengers). It'll not be long before we see them spattered on the motorway, a bit like we do pheasants now.

Here endeth todays nature lesson. Tomorrow we learn how to kill a mole. Now there's only one way to kill a mole . . . If you like Jasper Carrott, you'll know the rest.

There's two ways really..
one involves puttung a quarter in the machine and trying to smack it with a mallet..
the other is to blow it's @##$??? head off.

Nice photograph, but it's a fulmar not a gull. They're strictly coastal and no threat to chip eaters!

Absolutely right Not sure the other method would work or whether it'd be half as much fun. No disrespect to moles you understand, adorable creatures . . . unless they've made their home in your lawn of course.

Definitely a Fulmar, there's no such thing as a Seagull! they're all Gulls' Apart from a certain team that was recently relegated from the championship.

Don't get caught calling a fulmar a gull 'cause they eat awful smelling fish, are quite adept at throwing up and are very quite accurate with their aim.

Nice Photo.

Steve

Hi, and thanks for all the positive comments.

Thanks also for proving my point, most definitively, that I've never been a birdwatcher.. ..and I also would like to add a welcome to Martin to the forum..

I looked through the RSPB site (it's linked above, and I've been working too hard this evening to repost the link (although it would have been less characters than I've typed to say why I haven't posted the link)) : to try to identify it, and obviously failed dismally.

I'm hoping to get the gallery for my seabirds up on my site tomorrow, so you can all tell me that I didn't get the shot of the Andean Condor that I thought I did..

G'Night..

Cheers

Liam