During the past couple of weeks, it’s been fascinating to watch two Lesser black-backed gulls – presumably, the same two who nested amongst a group of neighbouring chimney pots last year – renewing their pair bonds and practising their seduction techniques. The process goes a bit like this …

They circle each other, beaks thrust towards the sky in unison, and there’s some low bird-speak (as opposed to gull shrieking) …

One bird (the female, I think) begs the other for food, as if it is a chick, and the second bird regurgitates a niblet of food …

There’s more circling and beak thrusting and chatter …

Finally, the males jumps on the back of the female, though it takes them a couple of minutes to spread their wings, tails, feathers to reach the right angle to achieve copulation …

And this happens more than once, the male remaining on the female’s back until they’ve copulated three times during this one session …

Once finished, he jumps off, she puts her head down and waggles her rear end, and there is more low chatter, and a little beak bumping, before they both fly off.