Dirty bird

Looking right back at ya
Port Stanley, ON
August 2018
This photo originally shared on Instagram

There’s nothing exotic about this bird, a common gull, more noted for its propensity to steal hot dogs from unsuspecting children than appearances on National Geographic covers.

Photo-tourists don’t chase gulls to exotic locales, or use massive lenses to capture them perched on equally exotic tree branches. Nobody writes poems about them, or uses sweet prose to describe their beautiful voice. Last I checked, a flock of seagulls reminded me of crotchety grandparents arguing over shuffleboard scores at the retirement villa. Angry birds, indeed.

But none of that matters on a windy day where this common, dirty, forgettable bird takes to the sky with a mastery that has to be seen to be believed. It makes no difference whether you’re at a beach - as I was on this late summer day last year - or a parking lot or a neighborhood park, or anywhere else, for that matter. They are powerful, agile, confident, perfectly suited to their environment, and simply breathtaking to watch.

Winter, at least in this part of Canada, seems to have finally taken the hint and given way to spring, and gulls are starting to show up in the skies overhead. So it won’t be long before I point a long lens in their general direction and have a little optical fun with them. Because in my photographic world, the stuff that matters is the everyday. And there’s magic there, assuming we take the time to look.

Besides, exotic is overrated, anyway.

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