During flight birds navigate a dynamic atmospheric landscape which may add to or reduce the cost of flight if birds can exploit the atmosphere to their benefit. The atmospheric landscape is heavily influenced by the Earth’s surface and is therefore sensitive to landscape change and human development. For lesser black-backed gulls, who use a wide range of flight strategies and habitats, there is a need to understand how the atmosphere influences flight behaviour in the context of minimising potential negative interactions between gulls and human activity. This thesis aims to gain a deeper insight into how atmospheric conditions influence the flight behaviour of lesser black-backed gulls, particularly in human-engineered landscapes. We study the relationship between atmospheric conditions and flight at different scales using animal tracking technology, focusing on breeding season movements, alongside fine-scale environmental models. We explore whether a deeper understanding of gull movement behaviour can inform future landscape modifications, particularly in the context of wind farm development. We find that atmospheric landscapes influence gull flight behaviour on multiple scales, revealing both stochasticity and predictability in atmospheric resources used by gulls to reduce flight costs. Lesser black-backed gulls utilise a range of behavioural mechanisms to traverse this aerial environment, incorporating behavioural flexibility and a knowledge of the atmospheric landscape. In many respects, predictable atmospheric uplift is heavily influenced by human-engineering of the landscape, which is revealed in this thesis by studying surface-atmospheric interactions on a very fine scale. Just as we find that bird flight behaviour in relation to the atmosphere is moderated by human activity, we identify ways in which an understanding of the environmental drivers of bird flight can be used to inform future landscape modifications.