Birds and water... and sand, and camels

Birds and water is this week's SMAP title... I'm just throwing the sand and the camels as an extra! 😁

I've recently visited Morocco, a very warm (and arid!) country; but it does have a pretty decent coastal line, and where there is sea... we have seagulls!

Seagulls are going to be the star of this post; not that I haven't captured more feathered friends with my lens in this beautiful country, but they're the only species fitting the theme.

In this very photogenic coastal city, yellow legged gulls were seen and heard all over the place! Being a city where fishing has a strong presence, they were delighted near the port, with all the left over fish. Not that they waited for the fishing boats to arrive at the port, though...

Scenes like this were everpresent, and the ones with her bellies full could be seen relaxing in the shallow water pools, near the shore. There were a ton of juveniles, but they all seemed to belong to the same species.

As the golden hour approached, seagulls served yet another function: to improve the composition of my attemps at decent sunset photos! The colours were stunning and the seagulls flew by quite frequently, so the photographer is all to blame here for any lack of "a-ha!" photos.

In the loooong beach, a very short distance from the shore, there was a tiny lagoon, a place providing more opportunities to see big flocks of juvenile and adult seagulls; and this time, they weren't the only species present!

This area was a little more sheltered from the strong everpresent winds, so I'm guessing this was a great place to relax and preen; at least most juveniles were actively taking care of their plummage, with the company of a few sleepy adults.

And probably taking the time to do some "mammal watching", such as camels, tourists... and horses!

The last photo doesn't have water on it; but trust me, the water was very near. And since this post had equal parts of gulls and landscapes mixed, it's only fair to wrap it up with a close up of the star of the post, wouldn't you agree? :)

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