Above picture taken 8-30pm today and shows a small group of gulls (mostly common gulls) returning to their Estuary-side roost at dusk. In mid-winter this same return journey can be seen at about 3-30pm. Gulls ‘drift’ home in complete silence, to witness them requires a conscious effort to look up, ‘drift’ being the right word as they glide towards the Humber rarely needing to flap their wings, almost independent of wind speed and direction.
Just after dawn they fly inland, this experienced in the winter months but not at the moment unless one is outside by about 5-30am. Also by late October the daily ‘commute’ is joined by migrating geese which, unlike the gulls, communicate with each other in flight very audibly.
Harvest is late this year the crop made damp by the low pressure swirling around the British Isles for a few weeks now. Presumably the gulls are on the lookout for ongoing harvesting or for permanent pasture on which to ‘graze’.