View From The Shed by Volunteer Shaun - BLACK HEAD, BLACK EYE

BLACK HEAD, BLACK EYE

Here at RSPB Old Moor we have historically been home to a large colony of Black-Headed Gulls. Their numbers have grown over the decades until, in the spring of 2022, we counted around 7,000 of them on the islands of our main mere. They were incredibly noisy and impossible to ignore. All seemed well. 

Shockingly, the following year the population went into free-fall with only around 200 birds recorded. The dreaded H5N1 avian influenza - AKA ‘bird flu’ - had arrived and our lake fell silent. Not all of these missing birds died here but the disease had previously wreaked havoc across Western and Central Europe, devastating the colonies there. This is the very same area from where most of our incoming gulls migrate so we had far fewer than usual visitors to the Dearne Valley.

Fast forward a further twelve months to early Spring of this year and there had been a slight increase in numbers again, to approximately 500 birds. This was nowhere near our previous population figures but the green shoots of regrowth were visible. But then, tragedy struck once again, this time in the shape of a beautiful but hungry vixen. Foxes are quite adept in water and our particular individual would have got at least a podium finish in any Foxy Olympics Doggy Paddle event. She was regularly seen swimming out to our islands and gorging herself on over 30 chicks per day, presumably to be regurgitated for her own young back at her den. She just kept coming back for more. To be fair, if they were to open a Pizza Hut next to my house, why would I bother travelling to a health food store ten miles away? I’d just keep on serving myself until they ran out of business. And she did the same. 

So our gull population took a second massive hit in as many years from which they have yet to recover. As much as I try to see all of nature’s wonders equally, I have to admit that these cacophonous creatures aren’t my favourite birds. When visitors would ask at Old Moor’s Welcome Shed about the plummeting population I’d explain the circumstances and then add, “but if we can afford to lose huge numbers of one species it’s the Black-Heads”. But little did I know. 

There are plenty of Black-Headed Gulls around. For those of us who don't live by  the coast and don’t feel plagued by the famous chip-thieving Herring Gull, the BHG will be the gull that we see the most. Any lake, supermarket car park or rubbish dump will have a population of them. When migrating birds swell the numbers for the winter we can easily host over two million individuals on our British Isles. You might see them with their black hoods or maybe, when not in mating plumage, their heads could be white with just a grey spot behind the eye to identify them. They’re everywhere, but they’re not quite as completely everywhere as they used to be. In the last thirty years their numbers have fallen dramatically. Sadly that seems to be a phrase that I write in almost every blog. It’s true for so many species and in this case particularly so. Across Europe Black-Headed Gull populations have dropped by around a third over three decades. It’s grim reading as always, but it’s not all doom and gloom. Latest studies show that in North America their numbers seem to be not only holding steady but even increasing slightly. Perhaps they’re just moving over there in line with some pattern which we have yet to discover?

They’re a hardy little gull. An individual can easily live 12 or 15 years in the wild with some ringed birds being recorded to ages of over 30. And they seem to be bouncing back from the devastating effects of bird flu, which hit their tightly-packed colonies harder than most other species. Like Gannets, the survivors seem to have developed black eyes - although it’s hard to see on the BHG as their eyes are dark to begin with. Being a relatively long-lived bird, these survivors can potentially go on to have many young of their own and, hopefully, pass on their own immunity to this dreadful disease. 

Obviously we should do as much as we can to save these under-rated and under-threat birds yet there’s no way that anyone could ever call them ‘polite’ or ‘discreet’. They’re noisy, raucous birds, constantly squabbling for food, territory or sometimes just because they seem to enjoy being quarrelsome. Some people might even say that they’re incredibly annoying.  That’s one way of looking at them and it seems to be the common view. But alternatively you could see their flocks as an extended family with a fascinating social interaction. Watch them for just five minutes and you’ll see a world of interesting little events - just like our own human soap operas. Their family feuds are more like our own than we want to admit.

I still haven’t warmed to them too much but I do hope that their numbers return to what they were just a few years ago, especially here at Old Moor. But by then I’ll no doubt be complaining once again about how annoying they are.