It's a gull

Back in November I warned you that I'd bought myself a book on gulls, and threatened you with some esoteric gull blips in future, and rather than the expected response, I received a fair bit of encouragement:

Gulls? You can educate me. My expertise stops at 'white and grey', and 'white and black', Oh and black headed. CanCarrier

looking forward to the gulls - promise I won't "fly off" Snappybiatch

"gulls" - you mean they come in more varieties than just your standard ice-cream-stealing "sea" type?? ;-) odeyrandom

I shall look forward to gulls - they are difficult. My birdwatching Oxfordshire living friend assumes I have them cracked because I live by the sea --if only it was that simple. Ramblingfree

I look forward to being educated on seagulls. I like them. Amalarian

Well for the first in the series I bring you a Third Winter Herring Gull. This guy hatched in the summer of 2008 the plumage is quite similar to an adult, but greyish-brown, slightly mottled tertials and parts of coverts, slight dark tail-markings and duller bill with black subterminal markings. Later in winter red should starts to occur on the lower bill.

A slightly less technical description would be "here we have a young ice-cream-stealing seagull".

This was taken just downstream of Smeaton's bridge where the Tay rushes through the arches and the ice is building up at the side.

Do your homework and study in Large.