As you might expect, given I was staying in a town by the seaside, the most numerous bird species I saw during my week in Eastbourne was the Herring gull, through all its juvenile stages to white-and-grey-plumaged adult. So, of course, I took photos of some that caught my eye.

One of the juveniles was gracefully sipping a drink of relatively fresh water from a puddle along the Eastbourne seafront.

Lifeguards might not have been on duty at Eastbourne beach but the many Herring gulls were always keeping an eye out.

This adult was sitting on a rooftop on one of the buildings on Eastbourne pier, hoping one of the many visitors would accidentally drop some morsels of the food they all seemed to be eating.

During my second day at Birling Gap, the weather was quite wild, with occasional driving rain and constant strong winds. The gulls were loving the wind, cliff surfing along the coastline, 30 feet (9 metres) above the beach for them, eye level for me. I loved watching them and took a lot of photos, though the combination of me trying to stand still and the birds’ movement meant most turned out a little blurry.

On the final day of my holiday, spent meandering around the Seven Sisters Country Park, one of the last birds I saw as I headed for the bus was this Herring gull. Though I might be guilty of anthropomorphising the scene, I detect a satisfied grin on the bird’s face as it bashes the crab it’s caught on a rock to break it in to edible pieces.