THE



Avicultural Magazine


THE JOURNAL OF THE

AVICULTURAL SOCIETY



Fourth Series. —Vol. XI.—No. 4 .—All rights reserved. APRIL, 1933 ,



LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULLS


By W. H. Workman


As there is always a demand from onr readers to hear about the

commoner kinds of birds and how they may be brought up, it has

occurred to me to put down a few notes regarding three chicks of the

above species, which were given to me in 1932, and two of which, now

full grown, are a never-ending source of interest and amusement to

us all.


About the middle of June a friend who owns a grouse moor in

Co. Antrim arrived at my house with a paper bag containing the three

downy chicks, two just about two days out of the egg and the third

about five days old. I was more than surprised to get these birds

from an inland moor many miles from the sea, but such is the case ;

this species breeds inland on this mountain. My experience of the

Lesser Black-backed Gull on the West Coast of Scotland was always

confined to small islands where I have found hundreds of nests.


Needless to say, I was delighted with the little chicks clad in their

light grey down with large black blotches all over ; this can be seen well

in the photographs taken when three weeks old. The job was to know

how to feed them. There doesn’t seem to be much published about

Gulls, but we made an attempt by hand-feeding with bread and milk,

which they ate ravenously, and in a few days picked for themselves.

We kept them in a box with wire netting over the top ; as they are very

dirty things when young the hay had to be changed every day. These



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