Fig. 110.—Great Black-backed Gull. ¹⁄₁₁ natural size.
Turner, who wrote on British birds three centuries ago, in describing the great black-backed gull, says that it was called ‘cob’ on the Kentish and Essex coast. It is curious to find that it is still known by this name in the same localities, where it is now very rare. In colour and appearance it closely resembles the lesser black-back, but exceeds it in size, and is nearly twice as heavy—it is, in fact, the largest of the gulls. It is also the rarest species in the British Islands; for although its breeding-sites are not few in Scotland, while others exist on the coasts of England, Wales, and Ireland, its colonies are very small compared with those of other species, and in many cases the breeding-place is occupied by a single pair. Its habits are similar to those of the herring and lesser black-backed gulls; but being so much larger and more powerful, it is more injurious to other sea-birds, whose nests it plunders of their eggs or young. It is also more oceanic, straying to a great distance from land in its search for dead animal matter floating on the waves—a veritable ‘vulture of the sea.’ Its nest is placed, as a rule, on the summit of an inaccessible rock on the coast, or on a small rocky island, and is carelessly formed of seaweed and grass. Two or three eggs are laid, greyish brown, sometimes tinged with olive, with dark brown spots distributed sparingly over the whole surface.
Black-headed Gull.
Larus ridibundus.
Bill and feet red; head and upper part of the neck blackish brown; mantle grey; all the rest, white; the under parts tinged with pink. The black on the head is lost in winter. Length, sixteen inches.
The black-headed gull, if not the most abundant of its genus, is without doubt the most generally known, on account of its wide diffusion in the country, and of its habit of breeding in inland marshes. It remains throughout the year, most of the time frequenting the flat parts of the sea-coast, estuaries, and tidal rivers, where it is seen perpetually roaming up and down in search of the small fishes and crustaceans on which it feeds, and any dead animal matter cast up by the tide. In its winter dress it is almost impossible to tell this species from the common gull and kittiwake when they are seen together, as in size they are nearly alike, and the buoyant, leisurely flight and circling motions in the air are the same in all. But very early in spring the distinguishing mark and nuptial ornament of a black hood is assumed, after which there can be no mistake. And here I may remark that I differ from Howard Saunders when he says that, as the hood is not black, the bird should be called the brown-headed gull. Vernacular names of this kind are descriptive of the creatures as they appear to us when seen living in a state of nature; and at a distance of twenty or thirty yards, which is as close as a flying gull will come to a man, the hood certainly appears to be black.
Black-headed Gulls. Pochards. Shoveler. Water-Hens.