A breeding adult with its characteristic dark-brown hood and white eye arcs. The dark hood disappears in winter, leaving just two dark spots, the so-called earplugs. The noisy calls of these gulls, especially when in groups, are in the minds of many people indelibly linked with the seaside.
Observing it all from the top of her lamp post. Some of the Dutch and Belgian people may remember the "Juffrouw Ooievaar" character from the children's programme Fabeltjeskrant (revived last year for its 50th anniversary). For all their long-legged beauty and cute association with bringing babies, storks are voracious carnivores, eating everything from insects to amphibians, birds and mammals.
