Most people despise the `Herring Gull' because of its habit of depositing its excreta from a height which can be a little disparaging.
 However when you look at them closely as you will easily do if you go anywhere near Ladies walk bridge or indeed the beach, you will realise just how beautiful they really are. That sharp yellow bill with its orange patch underneath, that magnificent grey/blue plumage with a snow white breast and black and white tipped wings. The pinky yellow feet.They can become aggressive as they have increased in numbers due to man depositing his rubbish everywhere and they eat ANYTHING. You are asked not to feed them as they should really feed on their natural prey which is fish, shellfish and would you believe it Worms. On grassy areas such as the Green and Oaklands and the sides of the canal you will often see these creatures doing a strange `dance'.  They rapidly run on the spot for a minute or so
and it has been observed that this action mimics rain and worms come up thinking its a shower and get eaten by the gulls. The author has seen this many times and its very comical. The other thing they do and this can be seen at low tide at Sandgate is pick up mussels from the rocks take then up to a great height then drop them so as to smash the shells to get at the contents. However they rarely are able to glean the results of their endeavours because other gulls watching this dive in and snatch the mussels.
Perhaps they all have a go at dropping then take it in turns to snatch the booty.

Interesting thing is the young Gulls start `dancing' in their second year and also dropping the mussels so they must spend their first year watching the actions of older birds.