Caspian Gull (Larus cacchinans) at the Danube Biosphere Reserve. Photo by By Максим Яковлєв – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=59443777

Dear Readers, gulls are extremely adaptable and intelligent birds, and their lives have long been entangled with those of humans. Landfill sites used to be one of the most interesting (though smelly) places to spot these birds as they picked through our rubbish, in large part because we had stripped the seas of readily available fish. Ever opportunistic, they then took to taking our chips and the ice cream right out of our toddler’s cones, and raiding rubbish bins all over the country. They have also utilised flat roofs whenever they find them, with the roof of Dorset County Hospital being a gull hotspot – on my many visits to the hospital with Mum and Dad, we would often watch the gulls bringing in food to feed their fluffy chicks. When I took a walk around the Inns of Court and met a falconer, he told me that he had largely been employed because the gulls were harassing the barristers on their way to and from court.

Herring gulls in St Pancras and Islington Cemetery

When we lived in Islington, we often heard the gulls calling in the morning – it was a sound that I associated with the seaside when I was growing up, but in my lifetime the birds have moved inland, in search of nest sites and food. But I hadn’t realised the speed of change until I read a report in this month’s British Birds, which documented a truly exponential increase in the number of Caspian Gulls breeding on flat roofs in various Polish cities. Over the sites monitored, which were in Warsaw, Szczecin and Poznan, the numbers of breeding pairs of the birds had increased from less than 50 in 2019 to 450 in 2023.

Caspian Gulls are members of what’s now known as the ‘Herring Gull/Lesser Black-backed Gull complex’ – they can interbreed, and in many of the nest sites the birds were found nesting together. They were largely nesting on the roofs of large industrial and commercial buildings and, unlike Herring Gulls, they were not currently seen to be interacting with humans. I imagine that this won’t help them particularly when it comes to whether people are prepared to tolerate them or not, however – gull identification is notoriously difficult, and to most people a ‘seagull’ is a ‘seagull’, regardless of species.

Caspian Gulls do sometimes visit the UK, though I suspect that they are under reported. My Crossley Guide suggests that they can be identified by their ‘strangely small head’, long legs and attenuated back end.

Caspian Gulls from British Birds June 2021

You might wonder what a Caspian Gull sounds like, so here we are (recorded by Albert Lastukhin)

And here’s a Herring Gull recorded in Sweden by Ulf Elman. A bit higher pitched I think? Though with all those hybrids about it won’t be clear cut. In the background you can hear Eider Ducks chuckling and mewing away.

Personally, I have a lot of time for gulls of all kinds – I’ve watched them playing by sliding down a pitched roof and then flying back to the top to do it again. I’ve watched how stealthily they can steal food from unsuspecting folk who are visiting the seaside. I’ve seen how protective they are of their young, how bold and enterprising they are, and how they take advantage of every opportunity that we present. They are the aerial equivalent of foxes in their adaptation of cities all over Europe as their home, and personally I salute them.

And finally, have a look at this Herring Gull (wearing the tiniest Mohican haircut you’ve ever seen). S/he is puddling for earthworms, hears another gull, stops for a moment to call, looks around as if trying to remember what s/he was doing and goes back to puddling. What a star!

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