This post isn't strictly about birds, but there is enough feathered stuff inside :) and I didn't post in this cool community for quite a long time ... so I decided that this is the right place for this little walk around the port of my hometown.
The seagulls are the most common and numerous birds here.
Especially seagulls of this species ... Larus michahelis, the Yellow-legged gull.
Now, while watching these photographs, you may ask - how this species got its common name? The legs of these birds don't look yellow.
Well, that's because these are the juvenile gulls. It takes a year - year and a half for the young ones to get the adult look and plumage. This teenager is trying to improve his fish hunting skills while playing with the leaf. On the following photograph you can see an adult bird ...
... ready to take flight. After observing and photographing the seagulls for a while ...
... I went sniffing around the port to see what else could I incorporate in the post ...
... to make it a bit longer ... and kind of meandering.
The low tide revealed some cool stuff.
The old wooden boat stuck in the muddy shallows ...
... the heart shaped fish trap waiting for some catch ...
... another fish trap, a tunnel - shaped one ... waiting for a higher tide to become fully functional.
Near the main fishing dock, I found this underwater plant. It looks like the Christmas tree from the sunken civilization.
Meanwhile, the young birds ...
... were engaged in their mundane activities.
While preparing the pictures for the post, to add a bit more to the atmosphere, I went sniffing through some old folders in my PC ...
... there I found this shot taken some years ago, when some works on the docks were in progress. The people on the photograph also look a bit like two birds, so maybe this story, according to the title - is essentially about them.
A bit further along the bay ... on the other side of the port ...
... I found some other interesting coastal birds.
These are the Red-breasted mergansers (Mergus serrator) ... here you can see the male and the female ... while on the following shot ...
... another male is taking care of his plumage after a short dive.
These birds were pretty shy, so all you see is happening far from me, somewhere at the edge of my camera's zooming capabilities.
While observing this female through my camera, like through some scenic telescope ...
... I had the opportunity to witness a cool little action.
She caught a crab ...
... and then proceeded to remove the legs and pincers ...
... before swallowing the meal.
Mergansers are ducks ... but they are diving, fish hunting ducks ... so they look a lot like cormorants ... especially when seen in action.
They are here only in winter ... then return in their more northern breeding grounds.
And now ...
... with a female snorkeling for food ... is time to end this little feathered coastal ramble ... as always in these posts on HIVE, all the photographs, and GIFs made from some of those photographs - are my work.
[//]:# (!pinmapple 44.819523 lat 13.931404 long Some cool birds in the port. d3scr)
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From @borjan