BREEDING COLONIES OF THE BLACK-HEADED GULL 79 



The colony was visited in 191 3 by the late S. E. Brock, who 

 reckoned it at about sixty pairs ; on 5th July when I saw 

 it there were considerably less, but by that date practically 

 only those having broods to attend to would be left. From 

 what I was told, it appears that the Gulls had nested in this 

 locality for at least fifteen years. So far as I know it is the 

 only breeding-place in the county; there may have been 

 others in the past, but I have failed to hear of any. 



Stirlingshire (Forth Section). 



As far as I can learn no Gulls breed in the east of this 

 section of the county, though likely enough there would be 

 a colony or two on the mosses there before the miner came 

 to be so much in evidence. Among the Dunipace hills a 

 small colony appears to have nested at one time on Loch 

 Coulter. According to a report received by Harvie-Brown 

 in the sixties, "they nested on a cairn of stones in the loch, 

 but the stones having been removed the Gulls have abandoned 

 the locality" (MS. note by H.-B.). 



West Flanders Moss, between Bucklyvie Station and the 

 River Forth.^ Writing on 28th April 1884, Harvie-Brown 

 informed Robert Gray that on the 25th of that month he 

 visited "an immense colony of Black-headed Gulls that have 

 established themselves on Flanders Moss, Stirlingshire. The 

 colony he believed to be the largest in Scotland " (MS. note 

 by R. G.). Probably this has reference to the breeding-places 

 on the Perthshire side of the Forth as well, mainly on what I 

 call East Flanders Moss. The Stirlingshire site was, however, 

 to my own knowledge the breeding-quarters of several 

 hundreds of Gulls five-and-twenty years ago; on ist May 

 1896, and again on 14th May 1897, I saw many nests, and 

 reckoned that the colony could not be short of 300 pairs 

 (exclusive of others seen to the north of the river). Recently 



1 Bartholomew's Reduced Ordnance Survey Maps, Sheets 7 and 8, 

 show two Flanders r\Iosses, one on the Stirlingshire side of the Forth 

 near Bucklyvie, the other on the Perthshire side east of Cardross 

 House. To avoid confusion I call them West and East Flanders Moss 

 respectively. No doubt they are but parts of the original, far more 

 extensive Flanders Moss. 



