120 Baby Birds at Home 



Throughout the greater part of the year 

 the Black-headed Gull feeds upon worms, 

 slugs, and grubs picked up in ploughed fields 

 and pastures. 



As a rule, it nests in colonies, but 

 occasionally a solitary pair may be found 

 breeding on the edge of some moorland tarn. 

 Swamps and bogs near to inland lakes, also 

 small islands in bodies of fresh water, are its 

 favourite breeding haunts : but at Raven- 

 glass, in Cumberland, a vast number of Black- 

 headed Gulls rear their young year by year 

 on sandhills near the sea. A curious fact 

 in regard to this matter is that the birds at 

 Ravenglass all appear to fly inland in search 

 of food for their offspring. 



The nest is made of sedges, rushes, reeds, 

 and dead grass, and the eg^s, generally 

 numbering two or three, are pale olive brown 

 to light umber brown in colour, spotted and 

 streaked with blackish brown and dark grey. 



The young ones are clothed in down and 

 begin to run about and swim soon after they 

 have been hatched. 



