Today, a brief shopping trip to Bridlington gave me some time to check out the birds in the harbour. With the tide in, and given the time of year, there were not too many species around; just large numbers of Herring Gulls of all ages. A single Lesser Black-backed Gull, a few Common Gulls and a lone Black-headed Gull provided at least a little variety and the only waders present were about twenty Ruddy Turnstones feeding on scraps left over from the day’s visitors.

Despite the low number of species it was interesting to sit and watch the gulls interact with each other and squabble over the food remains left lying around near the fast food outlets next to the harbour and it gave me plenty of opportunity to get some photos of them, with perfect light available and close-up views of the semi-tame birds. While gulls are not every bird watcher’s favourite group of birds, what I like about them is that it is often possible to watch them at close quarters and they have a lot of character.

One thing I have learned is that close-up observations of birds let you learn an awful lot about them and see a level of detail that is usually missed from further away, so it was nice to be able to watch and photograph these birds. Even with a very simple compact digital camera I was able to get a few nice photos of Herring Gulls, particularly when I tempted them to come closer with a few chips bought in a nearby shop! The following shot is one of the best ones I managed to get

Adult Herring Gull – photo by Nick Upton

This particular bird is of the argenteus subspecies, which is the one normally found all around the UK. However, in winter I have sometimes seen birds of the nominate argentatus subspecies which breeds in Skandinavia and Russia. For those interested in gulls, Bridlington harbour is a good place to find rarer visitors to UK’s shores.

Gulls are an intelligent and interesting group of birds but frequently they are a real challenge to identify. For those who want to learn more about gulls I highly recommend this book – Gulls of Europe, Asia and North America – one which I have used over and over again when encountering gulls around the world.