Menoturals; Shore Stories

Sharing with the LLB gang on Nature Friday. 

As I've been static for a few weeks, gathering nature shots has been a bit curtailed. I did rather like the solitary Heron, though...

I was equally enamoured of spotting a Great Black-backed Gull on the shores of Holy Loch... these are the largest of the gull species, and are distinguished from their more populous Lesser Black-backed cousins by their fully black wings, pinkish-blue leg colouring, and overall size. There was nothing here to show the size in context, but trust me, this fellow was standing tall. Sadly, I didn't get a shot in before he decided to collapse his legs and start swimming, so you can't see that bit of him...

... I take that back... if you look to the lower left of the image, you can just see an out-of-focus Redshank. They are not particularly small birds (about the size of a Bantam), but as it is splitting the distance between the Gull and me, you do start to get an inkling of that bird's size! 

Since we are on Gulls (again), here are a pair of Black-headed Gulls who performed a little preening dance in front of the van. These are about two-thirds the size of a Herring Gull and, for most of the year, in fact, only have the black patch behind the eye that you see here. The full hood only flourishes during mating season.

For those who are interested, Gulls are protected by law in the UK - particularly as the Herring Gull is now on the Red (endangered) List, and the Lesser Black-backed is starting to show signs of threat, too. 

Now here's a beauty shot just to round the post off... oh, and a reminder that next week is final Friday already!!!