Just a common seagull …

Other people’s words about … birdwatching

Often, the people who ask [what kind of bird my pet rook is] are the same ones who, by worthy, rapt and enthusiastic attention to wildlife programmes on television, know the minutest workings of the inner lives of polar bears, of anteaters, hummingbirds, frogs. They’ve seen unfurled before their eyes the most intimate transactions in the lives of other creatures, wooing, mating, birth, all in magnificent colour and irresistible detail, each undreamt-of habit, each hitherto opaque, obscure aspect of nesting or feeding or defecation, but will say, ‘What is it?’ when confronted with the one bird they see every day, making me reflect yet again on the oddness of humanity, which, in its desires and its yearnings, wishes to find life on other planets, other civilisations, but knows so little of the civilisations around it.

From Corvus: A life with birds
by Esther Woolfson

So true.
I love birds, though I’ve never travelled overseas to see one.
Even the commonest seagull can make me marvel.