Lesser black-backed gull #2

The end of April sees the end of our financial year at work, so its always a hectic time of year.  It has been the usual fairly full on April as a result.  Today saw me grab a quick 30 minutes walk around the docks at lunch time, to try to blow away the cobwebs, complete with SLR, looking for a blip.

I had some options, but I was keen to see if I could take another picture of the gulls that are pretty prevalent in the centre of Bristol.  It was windy today so they were moving rather more quickly than last time, and tracking them in flight was considerably more difficult.  This is a shot of a lesser black-backed gull (you can tell because of the yellow legs).  I know a bit more about these now, having spoken to my friend Dave about them the other night in the pub.

Dave explained to me that there were no such thing as seagulls and proceeded to try to educate me about some of the varieties of gull.  Despite the fact that we seem to be overrun with the things here in Bristol, the lesser black-backed gull is on the amber list of the RSPB because the UK is home to 40% of the population and more than half of them are found at fewer than 10 sites.

That perhaps explains why we have to tolerate them here.  Although they can be pretty aggressive and have been known to dive bomb people that are eating food in order to get them to drop it.  The gulls then make of with a stolen snack.  

I've just realised that if I had thought this through I could have saved this one for the Soapbox Thursday challenge - doh!