Day 14.254: An unexpectedly heavy landing

As we walked along the beach on Saturday my eye was drawn to a seagull descending rapidly over the water. As I focused on it, it landed heavily in the water, just about disappearing under the surface briefly before coming up again and then shortly after taking off.

This was nothing like the graceful dives of the terns, nor like a normal gull surface landing. I had no idea why it had done it, but then it flew almost directly towards me with something in its beak which turned out to be a small crab. After which the battle commenced:

I have no idea what preceded my part of this story - did the gull spot the crab in the water for some reason? Did it drop it or see another bird drop it there and go to claim it before it could sink out of reach? I don't know.

I also don't know what happened after this - but at the time I left to catch up with the others the tide was in the gull's favor.