what is that in the driveway?

I was in the dining room the other night and I hear Vince say "Donna, comeer!" in that kind of loud whisper that means 'you better drop whatever you are doing and come right away' tone. So I went!
He was pointing out the bathroom window and he says "what does that look like?" I said "looks like a seagull! and not one of those little ones that are flying around the Walmart parking lot either!"

I went and grabbed the camera and took a bunch of pictures.

While I was snapping away, this deer wanders in....

He flapped his wings a few times, then lay down

After a little while, he got up, walked up the driveway a little and lay down again. It was about 8:30 by then, and getting too dark to take pictures. So I went and downloaded the pictures to my laptop so we could a better look at him. We looked up gulls in our Sibley bird book, and he is a 'Great Black-backed Gull". The book said they are rarely sighted inland, so this guy was really lost! We googled images also just to make sure what kind of gull it was. He was still in the driveway when we went to bed. We didn't see him when we got up the next morning, so we assumed he had flown away. But as I was sitting on the porch drinking my coffee, he came flying around the house and landed out by the garden.

It looks like he has some sort of growth or injury on the top of his bill.

He flew over the creek and hung out over there for a while, then left. We haven't seen him again. I hope he finds where he is supposed to be! We've seen a lot of interesting things in our yard but this right at the top of the list. We had a snapping turtle trying to make a nest in the driveway a few years ago, but I think the gull tops that! These were the only pictures I have of her...

Vince was looking out the window and saw something moving in the driveway, from far away it just looked like a clump of grass, but when we got up close to it, this is what we saw! She tried dig a hole in the stones, but it is so compacted she gave up and left. We never saw her again either!