How is it that 90% of the gulls that fly past my house are flying into the wind ? (1 Viewer)

[occasional]

How is it that 90% of the gulls that fly past my house are flying into the wind, and I cannot detect any return route ?

 

[KenM]

Are they flying West (Westerly being the prevailing wind) and are they going to roost (early evening)?

FWIW gulls going to roost pass over my abode every evening during the Winter months, from the East going West, to roost on the reservoirs c2miles distant.

The morning return is (very early) when I’m still (mostly) asleep.

Cheers

 

[occasional]

It is actually in the Strait of Gibraltar so we get winds which are more or less East or more or less West and, whatever the wind direction, over 90% of the gulls are flying into the wind. This can go on for days on end so it is hundreds, if not thousands of gulls.
There are roosts in both directions so one theory could be that the gulls do change their roost as the wind changes

 

[dantheman]

Gulls certainly like flying into a headwind* ... as do many birds, although they don't necessarily make good headway all the time, although surprisingly they do mostly. Related to lift as in aircraft with wind speed etc. It's not often you see a bird being blown along by the wind as it were. Seabirds out to sea in windy conditions usually can be seen flying into the wind.

It's possible that birds making a return journey (if they are doing so) do by a route you don't see (eg inland).

*(Perhaps that guy who wrote Jonathan Livingstone Seagull thought so too)