'A young Black-Headed Gull in its first coat of feathers." 



THE BLACK-HEADED GULL 



HE Black-Headed Gull is a 

 familiar bird, even to those 

 who have seldom or never 

 visited the sea, for, in 

 addition to being exceed- 

 ingly common, it pene- 

 trates the remotest parts 

 of the country in search 

 of food or breeding quarters. 



In the spring time, when the birds 

 assume their nuptial black or very dark- 

 brown head-dress, which is brought 

 about by a change of colour and not of 

 feathers, they leave most of our tidal 

 rivers, and betake themselves to their 

 favourite breeding haunts on the edges 

 of meres and tarns. Boggy, wet places 

 are by no means essential, however, to 



the well-being of their eggs and chicks, 

 for at Ravenglass, in Cumberland, where 

 our photographs were taken, Black- 

 Headed Gulls breed in vast numbers on 

 sand-dunes, with the sea on one side and 

 tidal rivers on the other. Although a 

 gregarious species, I have on several 

 occasions met with a solitary pair breed- 

 ing on some small mountain tarn. At 

 Scoulton Mere, in Norfolk, great num- 

 bers of this species have bred for over 

 three hundred years in unbroken suc- 

 cession, and at Pallisbourne, in North- 

 umberland, there is a very old Gullery. 

 The Black-Headed Gull commences to 

 breed in April, and makes a rough nest 

 of sedges, rushes, reeds, bits of dead 

 heather, or grass, on the ground amongst 



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