Seabird Photobombs London Traffic Cam, Becomes Internet Sensation

Traffic backups aren’t usually a laughing matter, but one brazen bird provided some comic relief by repeatedly photobombing a London traffic camera. As CBS News reports, a herring gull recently became a viral sensation after it perched itself directly in front of a camera and looked around lackadaisically as cars crept along in the background.

TfL Traffic News in London tweeted the first photo of the gull on Monday. The seabird returned to the same spot on Tuesday, prompting the traffic news account to tweet, “Guess who's back?!" Then, on Wednesday, the camera captured a short video of the gull, who seemed to either be enjoying—or oblivious to—its newfound fame.

The London gull isn’t the first bird to hijack a traffic cam, though. In 2017, a curious toucan landed on a sky-cam tower in São Paulo, Brazil and leaned in for its close-up.

While it’s unclear what attracted the seabird to this particular camera, gulls and other birds have been known to attack drones. A post on the website Letusdrone.com recommends wrapping the drone in a colorful “skin”—they seem to particularly hate red—or drawing “angry eyes” on it to scare away persistent gulls.

[h/t CBS News]