Friday 8 January 2016

The Birds of the Blue Lake; The Song of the Gulls

"Song of the Gulls" is a beautiful piece of music on arty prog rockers King Crimson's 1971 album "Islands".

This is of course nothing like what gulls sound like close up. "Clamour of the Gulls" would be better, "Squabble of the Gulls" better still. Both of these conditions were very much evidence as I walked around the Blue Lake just after Christmas, in the context of the birds having a wild aerial dogfight as they contested for bits of bread launched at the ducks by a toddler and his parents.

These are black-headed gulls, none of your big beastly black backs that tear up the rubbish tip up the cycle track, or the herring gulls that steal fish and chips from crying children at the seaside.

In winter plumage, the black-heads do the opposite from the rest of us, waiting for warmer weather to put on their hats.

They are mad.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 08.01.16






6 comments:

  1. I love that first shot with the feet hanging down especially.

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  2. I do like the black headed gulls Si. They are small and quite dainty compared to the herring and black backed gulls. We have lots of them here at the moment and they make a beautiful sight early in the morning flying low over the golf course and parkland in large flocks.

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  3. Love the action shots Simon - lovely gulls :) Your mention of King Crimson took me back a bit!! :)

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  4. Good photos Si. I am sure that when I was a child we rarely saw gulls of any kind inland (in fact on the odd occasion when we did we always said there was a storm at sea!) Now, if the farmer gets his plough out and the sky is empty of gulls,by the time he gets to the other end of the field there are at least a hundred behind him. How do they do it

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  5. Childhood. Kirkcudbright. Granny would put out a chicken carcass out on the grass. Within 5 minutes black backed gulls the size of eagles would have torn it to shreds, with herring gull help.

    Thanks for dropping by.

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  6. We get them here too in large numbers. I'm never sure they look right in land but I love them on the coast.

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