Calling mother

At least that is what I believe this juvenile Black-backed Gull was doing. Intermittently it emitted a short, high pitched peep, as it remained hunkered low on top of this post at the edge of Queen's Wharf this morning. (Best seen large)

I was there having run from home looking to continue the Saturday Sunrise series. I had in mind a couple of options; this was the simpler of the two. Go to the very end of the wharf and wait for the sun to rise.

On the way I had been treated to some wonderful colours in the sky, set off by the tower blocks I was running past. Having got to this vantage point, I tried a number of different ways of capturing what I saw. As the sun rose above the horizon (only 60 seconds after this was taken), I had settled on just a small amount of water showing and the sky occupying the upper 2/3+ of the photo.

Together with S, I considered all the options, and she preferred this one, except that the gull was just a black blob. Decreasing the shadow fixed that and washed out the image. So, "increased the highlights", leaving the colours not quite right. So I adjusted the black point and ended up with this, which is true to what I saw.