CHAPTER II 



THE GULLS 



GULLS ARE STRONG aggrcssivc wcll-built birds with long wings 

 capable of sustained and powerful flight. They have webbed 

 feet, but are good walkers on land. In the air they move with ease and 

 grace, and glide without effort for long distances. The majority have 

 white bodies with grey or black mantles or wings. Some have a dark 

 hood during the breeding season, but this is moulted in the autumn. 

 The young gulls are more difficult to identify in the field, the juvenile 

 and first year plumages of the larger species being a drab mottled 

 brown. 



The full beauty of flight of the gulls may be watched from the deck 

 of a ship, when it will be seen that gulls are expert at taking advantage 

 of the wind-eddies caused by the passage of the vessel; again and 

 again they skim and circle about the ship, using the wind deflected 

 against the hull to lift them, with scarcely any movement of their 

 outspread wings. Over land they frequently soar, wheeling upon a 

 thermal pocket of air and spiralling to a great height with no more than 

 an occasional beat of the wings and twist of the tail. On the water 

 they swim buoyantly as they scavenge for food. They are however 

 poor divers and rarely submerge completely. 



Although some gulls migrate over considerable distances, they 

 are seldom long out of sight of land; the kittiwake, which ranges 

 over the whole of the North Atlantic, being the exception. At the 

 other extreme, most of the dark-headed gulls spend much of their 

 lives inland, often breeding far from the sea; and during the winter 

 months feeding in or near large towns, and roosting on the open water 

 of lakes and reservoirs at night. These smaller Larus gulls live much on 

 terrestrial insects, worms and small invertebrates during the summer, 

 when breeding inland; and nearly all the gulls, excepting the pelagic 

 kittiwakes, and the ivory-,, Ross's and Sabine's gulls of the Arctic, 

 regularly visit the land for food in autumn and winter, when seeds 



