First flight

After much flapping and holding its wings out in the wind, the herring gull chick took its first flight today.

Rather ungainly and unstable, each short flight lasting about 20 seconds and travelling a distance of a few feet.

The chick seemed to be experimenting with its wings and soon started to get a hang of the fine adjustments needed to fly.

Herring gulls and first flight

A drizzly windy day and ideal conditions for a herring gull chicks first flight.
Every time the wind picked up one of the chicks became very active bouncing up and down with wings open.

After a couple of false alarms, the chick launched itself into the air and managed a very awkward and short first flight

Touch down.

Herring gulls get a lot of bad press, being called noisy, blamed for tearing open bin bags and generally being a pest. However, as is often the case this has been largely due to us messy humans providing the gulls (who scavenge as part of their natural diet) an easy food source. At the same time we are over fishing the seas and putting pressure on our coastline causing gulls to adapt to a different lifestyle. In recent years UK herring gulls have declined by about 25% and they are now listed as a red status species.