Not Laughing Now

Tuesday evening I had a meeting to attend that was cut short at a local county park so afterwards I went out to see what birds I could find. I was photographing a Roseate Spoonbill when this Laughing Gull caught my eye.

Quite often when I am out photographing sea, shore and wading birds I see birds that are tangled in monofilament fishing line, a few times I have been able to rescue them by removing the line myself or calling the local seabird rescue group.

Unfortunately this gull could still fly and there was nothing I could do to help it, and that breaks my heart.

I have made it a habit over the years to pick up and safely discard any monofilament line I come across while I am out shooting images. I hope that one day we can come up with a solution to this problem, perhaps by creating fishing line that disolves rapidly when stomach acids come into contact with it.

D200, HH, laying flat in very wet tidal mud. F6.3, 1/250, ISO 250, 80-400mm VR at 400mm, 95% of original image. Shot in the light of the setting sun, which seems ironic because I wondered if the gull would be around to see the next rising sun.

As always, I sincerely appreciate your comment & critiques. Thank you for looking.