I hate my name. Makes me sound like a fish. Sand under my feet, nice and flat, allows a quick splurge of preening oil excreted from the back of my neck to cover my wings.
We're off. Don't know why. Like a flock but we don't flock. Ah. I can see now that I'm up here, a dog running towards our drinking area. Humans have befriended and then trained dogs to chase us, they are not allowed on the beach in the summer, but the humans ignore this and laugh at the sport.
Gliding now, on a thermal, looking for food with no effort involved. A few scouts have returned to our patch and I intend to join them for a drink.
Drinking water comes down into our harbour and mingles between seaweed covered rocks. Not as much water this year but enough for us. Lower beak into the water to fill it and, hup, I throw my head back to let the water go down my throat. Good to have a drink before the tide is fully in, and the drinking water disappears.
A hundred eggs ago, this harbour had boats that caught herring in massive numbers, so massive that humans ate nearly all of them. We benefitted from the offal and got our name, herring gull, from that. Ancient origins, but I still hate my name.