A dry and crisp morning again with a grey sky took a drive to The Transporter Bridge saw this seagull standing on the entrance into the carpark.
Gulls, or colloquially seagulls, are seabirdsof the family Laridae in the suborder Lari. They are most closely related to the ternsand skimmers and distantly related to auks, and even more distantly to waders. Until the 21st century, most gulls were placed in the genus Larus, but that arrangement is now considered polyphyletic, leading to the resurrection of several genera. An older name for gulls is mews, which is cognate with German Möwe, Danish måge, Swedish mås, Dutch meeuw, Norwegian måke/måse, and French mouette, and can still be found in certain regional dialects
Gulls are typically medium to large in size, usually grey or white, often with black markings on the head or wings. They typically have harsh wailing or squawking calls; stout, longish bills; and webbed feet. Most gulls are ground-nesting piscivores or carnivores which take live food or scavenge opportunistically, particularly the Larusspecies. Live food often includes crustaceans, mollusks, fish and small birds. Gulls have unhinging jaws which allow them to consume large prey. Gulls are typically coastal or inland species, rarely venturing far out to sea, except for the kittiwakes and Sabine's gull. The large species take up to four years to attain full adult plumage, but two years is typical for small gulls. Large white-headed gulls are typically long-lived birds, with a maximum age of 49 years recorded for the herring gull.
