This was very nearly a very messy and unfortunate end for one lucky bird.

Tourists at Edinburgh Castle witnessed a seagull getting far too close to the castle's guns at the worst possible moment yesterday in what could have been a very gory incident had the guns fired live ammo. Fortunately for this bird, the castle only fires blanks at the one o'clock salute and it flew away relatively unharmed, except for maybe some hearing loss.

As for the tourists, they were far less traumatised. Although getting smattered with bits of dead seagull would probably be a holiday memory that you wouldn't forget.

Via YouTube