Our Harwich Black Headed Gulls usually have white plumage, white faces with just a little grey patch on each cheek and black wing tips, but late autumn they start to congregate by the Dovercourt boating lake.
In late February early March they moult into smart new dating outfits with lovely dark chocolate colour heads with white eyeliner. Suddenly one day in March they are all gone, off to the shingle banks on the saltings between Harwich and Walton on the Naze to lay their eggs and bring up their families. When they return in early summer, their smart new outfits now rather battered and tatty, they moult into their summer plumage with white heads again.
I have been filming them and this series of paintings is taken from stills from my video footage. You can see the film clip on my instagram account @daphne_sandham