{"id":49849,"date":"2017-12-14T05:24:42","date_gmt":"2017-12-14T12:24:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/?p=49849"},"modified":"2025-03-09T05:31:59","modified_gmt":"2025-03-09T10:31:59","slug":"california-gull-in-my-face","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2017\/12\/14\/california-gull-in-my-face\/","title":{"rendered":"California Gull In My Face"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"CaliforniaCalifornia Gull flying straight at me – Nikon D500, f7.1, 1\/1250, ISO 500, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

In my Common Goldeneye<\/span><\/a> post from yesterday I mentioned that from day to day that the number of birds can increase or decrease substantially in a specific location and how that had happened when the number of goldeneyes increased at one of my local ponds. There has also been an increase in the numbers of California Gulls at my local pond too. Not that long ago most of the gulls I saw there were Ring-billed Gulls but now it seems like there are as many California Gulls as there are Ring-billed.<\/p>\n

I know, some people hate gulls but a bird is a bird is a bird as far as I am concerned and I’ll photograph them just for the fun of it and will readily admit that I love gulls.<\/p>\n

Besides, it isn’t all that often I get to photograph a gull lift off from the water and fly head on directly towards me like this California Gull in winter plumage did a few days ago. This is the sixth photo of a nine image series of this gull flying straight at me.<\/p>\n

\"CloseClose up California Gull in flight – Nikon D500, f7.1, 1\/1600, ISO 500, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

And this photo is the last one of the nine image series taken as the gull started to turn and by this time I wondered if the gull had flown past the minimum focusing distance of my lens, fortunately is was just far enough away to acquire one last sharp photo of the gull.<\/p>\n

I don’t know why the California Gull flew directly towards me. I didn’t have any food so that wasn’t a reason for the gull to fly straight at me. I guess I’ll never know why it decided to do what it did but I liked the resulting photos enough to share them with you all.<\/p>\n

Life is<\/em> good.<\/p>\n

Mia<\/p>\n

Click here<\/span><\/a> to see more of my California Gull photos plus facts and information about this species.<\/p>\n

I hope to post three more of this series in my photo galleries later today.<\/em> <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It isn’t all that often I get to photograph a gull lift off from the water and fly head on directly towards me like this California Gull in winter plumage did a few days ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":141346,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27,520,709,26],"tags":[970,4333,4142,4620,4052,4122,3539,521,5023,4230,4246,8018],"class_list":["post-49849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-avian","category-california-gulls","category-salt-lake-county-utah","category-utah","tag-autumn","tag-california-gull","tag-close-up","tag-fall","tag-flight","tag-flying","tag-gull","tag-gulls","tag-head-on","tag-larus-californicus","tag-nonbreeding-plumage","tag-urban"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t