As a young bird watcher, barely into my teens, I remember thinking it remarkable that there could be a gull that lived its life without seeing the sea. Yet it isn't inconceivable that a lesser black-backed gull (Larus fuscus) might do just that. During the 1960s I remember seeing Britain's largest colony of lesser black- backed gulls nesting on Walney Island on the edge of the Irish Sea. A little later I also saw a nesting colony on the high moorland of the Forest of Bowland, Lancashire. Today the bird can also be found nesting on the roofs of town and city buildings. The bird in the photograph was a solitary individual that had alighted on a large woodland pond in the Forest of Dean.
photo © T. Boughen Camera: Nikon P900
