Category Archives: winter gulls

Sunny but cold and windy….

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We have been so spoiled by warm weather this winter that a windy cold day like today on the beach is almost a shock. Yesterday was much windier but today was…..brrrrrrrrrr! It was so bright and sunny though that I decided to just head down Cape to see what I could see…

First stop was First Encounter Beach in Eastham. Can we say frigid with a brisk wind blowing off the bay? It sure was pretty though…

Even the dunes and wind blown cedars were pretty….

and I’m a sucker for a pathway that leads to the sea….

then off to Coast Guard Beach…where it was also just plain cold…

There weren’t too many long distance beach walkers but there were a few…

The sun was so bright it almost hurt my eyes….

It was low tide in the marsh….

On the way back home I stopped at Corporation Beach in Dennis where the gulls were all hanging out on the sand….

A few came by to see me, hoping I had food I think. The minute I opened the car door about a hundred gulls were on the wing and on the way to see me up close and personal.

This one looked at me from one side and then turned to look at me from the other side…

It was a cold morning, but a beautiful one and well worth venturing out for….

Young gulls….

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are easy to recognize with their gray and rather mottled appearance and there are quite a few of them on our beaches and in parking lots right now. Some species of gull keep their immature plumage for up to 4 years though the average is probably more like 2-3 years.

This young bird is a first year herring gull. Herring gulls used to be the dominant gull on the Cape, with a few greater Black-backed gulls mixed in and laughing gulls in the summer. Black-backs are now the dominant gull, I believe. They are the largest gull and very aggressive so that is not surprising. There are still plenty of herring gulls around, though. They are the gulls most people around here refer to as sea gulls. There aren’t really any particular birds named sea gull, by the way. It’s just a general sort of name, like minnows for tiny fish…..

This is an adult herring gull starting to go into its fall plumage. See the red tip at the end of the beak? That is fading now but in the spring and summer that is a bright red. Baby gulls eat food regurgitated by their parents and they let their parents know they are hungry by pecking on the red spot.
Do you know why herring gulls are called herring gulls?