George the Sea Gull

I was wandering around one of the buildings at work today and stumbled upon a Herring Gull chick drinking from a plastic water container. It was unusually tolerant of my presence, and was limping somewhat. While I was snapping away, one of the guys from the building came over and – seeing my camera – said. "So George is famous then." It turns out he must had fallen from a roof about two weeks ago, and although he can get around, no-one had been able to persuade him to fly. The best anyone had seen to date was a brief flap while he hopped down or up the steps. The locals – in between flapping their arms madly at him to encourage him to take off – are all feeding him, and making sure he's safe. 🙂

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George at the water bowl

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George on the grass

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You can see the injured leg in this shot

Just after that final photo, George decided that enough was enough and to my astonishment launched himself skyward. So he can fly after all and I suppose I'm the sole witness of his maiden flight (and unforgiveably didn't have the camera ready). I'll check back at the building tomorrow to see if he's still around. Either way… George, you're now famous!

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This Post Has 3 Comments

  1. sprogger

    25 Jul 2006

    Nice photos, we used to have a sea gull near here who was missing both legs, but he could still get around like nobodies business.

  2. anonymous

    26 Jul 2006

    Flying Red Fox writes:

    Hey Words nice pics of the sea gull but this morning they seem to have dissapeared!

  3. Words

    27 Jul 2006

    Mark,

    Maybe the bird has flown…. Not sure why the pix would be missing. They're still here (as is George when I checked today).

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