GENERIC: It happened so quickly. It swoops down and literally
takes the scoop of ice cream off the top and just flies away with
ice cream in its mouth.
And I'm terrified.
All of a sudden, this huge scream went up and we turned
around and she just looked absolutely horrified and was
shouting, the seagull stole my ice cream.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: It's a familiar scene at a British
seaside town. You're stopping for a snack when you have your
treat pinched by a precocious gull.
Seagulls are getting bigger, badder and more of a pest. Or so
we are led to believe.
But are we missing the point about seagulls? Could their
behaviour reflect higher intelligence and
resourcefulness?
Traits to be admired rather than maligned?
We're heading to Poole Harbour on England's south-west coast to
uncover the truth about seagulls.
Love them or hate them, you're in for some surprises.
Hello, I'm Ranger Rosie Holdsworth. If you're a National
Trust podcast listener, you've probably noticed that we look a
bit different.
We've changed to bring you even more immersive stories in nature
and history. Head to our new podcast, Back When, for hidden
histories and tales from time. But stay here for nature
mysteries.
Welcome to Wild Tales, Gangster Gulls.
So no trip to the seaside is complete without a fish and chip
shop stop and I can see along this lovely parade of shops here
there's a bright and breezy looking chip shop ready to go.
Hello, how are we doing? Great, thank you. Could we have two
bags of chips please? Thank you.
Do you have much bother with seagulls?
GENERIC: Yes, usually swoop down from the ledge above and take
the whole tray, food, chips and fish.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: Well, hopefully the chips will tempt
them in because that's what we're here to see today.
GENERIC: If you throw them about, they'll be here in
seconds.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: Thanks very much.
As a countryside manager in West Yorkshire, my usual haunts are
blasted moorlands and wooded valleys. So to come down to the
south coast is a real rare treat for me.
And as we stand here on the side of the quay, I can see to my
right hand side some very industrial looking docks. And by
sharp contrast on the left, there's some really expensive
looking yachts and a cormorant just popped up in front of us
here in the bay.
Perching on some of those yachts with their beady eyes fixed
keenly on me are several hungry looking seagulls but I can see
over here someone else looking hungry and I think it must be
Mya Bambrick who I'm hoping is going to teach me a thing or two
about gulls.
Hi Mya I hope you're hungry I've brought you some chips.
MYA BAMBRICK: Hiya thank you very much.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: I have to confess, I'm a bit of a seagull
agnostic, so I'm hoping you can tell me some things that might
convert me.
MYA BAMBRICK: I'll try my very best.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: So Mya, you're an ornithologist. Where does
that interest in birds come from?
MYA BAMBRICK: I grew up in Crawley in Sussex. I happened to
watch Springwatch on the telly one day, and I was absolutely
entranced in some of the wildlife you could see here in
the UK.
So I managed to persuade my mum to take me to my local nature
reserve. From then on, every weekend, I was in the bird
hides.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: You've continued that interest and
you're a youth representative for the British Trust For
Ornithology, is that right?
MYA BAMBRICK: Yeah, that's right. So trying to get as many
young people interested with birds, with wildlife, with
citizen science.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: As well as being in her final year at
university, Mya also works for Birds Of Poole Harbour, helping
to engage the public with the incredible wildlife here.
That brings us neatly on to seagulls. Oh, that's a misnomer,
isn't it? I shouldn't call them seagulls.
MYA BAMBRICK: We always say there's no such thing as a
seagull. So there are many different gull species here in
the UK.
In Poole Harbour, we have sort of six main common gull species.
So we've got one right behind us at the moment. But this is a
herring gull.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: Am I right in thinking that they're the guys
who get all of the gulls a bit of a bad rap?
MYA BAMBRICK: It is indeed. So this is the classic seagull, as
much as I don't like to say it. This one here is an adult. You
can see it's got a lovely grey back, white underneath. It's got
that quite big, large yellow bill with a red dot on it which
is classic of a herring gull.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: The red dot on the beak is a very important
part of some gulls' physical makeup as Dr Viola Ross-Smith
from the BTO explains.
DR VIOLA ROSS-SMITH: They're actually fantastic, fascinating
birds to watch. Nico Timbergen, the famous Dutch scientist, got
a Nobel Prize in 1973 for his studies on the behaviour of
herring gulls.
So one of the things he discovered was that herring
gulls have got a red spot on their beak and chicks peck at
their red spots when they first hatch to make parents
regurgitate food.
It's not just herring gulls that do this. All the large
white-headed gulls have the same red spot on the beak.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: So not just a random marking, but an
evolutionary tool.
MYA BAMBRICK: You can see it's also got those grey streaks on
the head.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: Yep.
MYA BAMBRICK: So that's adult winter plumage. So the younger
birds will look brown, streaky. But you can see there's actually
one just behind it. And this here is probably the youngster
of this adult.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: Ah right!
And those chicks can be quite demanding at times.
MYA BAMBRICK: So they'll actually chase the adults around
up until they have their next clutch in the spring.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: Wow.
MYA BAMBRICK: As we've been walking, I can hear some of the
food begging calls from the herring gulls and that's because
they're still chasing the parents around.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: Speaking of food, herring gulls have some
ingenious ways of getting a tasty morsel or two.
MYA BAMBRICK: They'll rise up in the air, drop shellfish down
onto the ground and then swoop down so then it's broken open.
And they'll keep doing that. They'll be persistent until it's
actually cracked open.
You know, herring gulls will do it, carrion crows, greater black
back gulls.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: And if you think that's impressive...
MYA BAMBRICK: You might sometimes be able to see herring
gulls doing a little dance. So they kind of pat their feet onto
the grass.
And what they're trying to do is charm the worms to replicate
rain. Sound of rain. And then you'll see them plucking a worm
out of the grass.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: Nice!
MYA BAMBRICK: They will scavenge for chips and things, but they
have such a bad rep. And what's really important is learn about
their ecology. Then we get more understanding of why they're
doing that. Yeah.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: It sounds like they're quite intelligent birds
then, and they're basically opportunists, and the
opportunity is humans with chips and shellfish lying around.
Love them or hate them, herring gulls are facing some serious
challenges, as Dr Viola Ross-Smith explains.
DR VIOLA ROSS-SMITH: They're a bit of a marmite species. Some
people love them, I love them. But a lot of people really
dislike them, particularly in the summer, when you've got the
kind of classic summer headlines about gulls taking over.
You know, eating your chihuahuas, they're going to be
coming for your children next, that kind of thing. That's the
herring gull that is typically being demonised.
They're not going to eat your children. They're actually a
red-listed seabird. They're on the Birds Of Conservation red
list. They have been since 2009 because of population declines.
So they might seem like they're taking over, but they're
actually not. Part of the reason, I think, for the
misconception is because they're strong holders in urban areas.
They're doing pretty well nesting on urban rooftops,
partly because there aren't so many predators in places like
that, and they can get predictable year-round food from
the rubbish we drop, for example.
But in the wider countryside, their numbers are not doing well
at all. The most recent seabird census, which was published in
November 2023, showed really stark declines for herring gulls
across the country.
I think we need to learn to love herring gulls and live alongside
them because we're in a biodiversity crisis and if a big
strong adaptable species like the herring gull isn't doing
very well, then what does that say about the prospects for more
fragile species?
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: Now that I know a bit more about herring
gulls, I'm keen to discover what other species are around.
We've wandered a little bit further along the quay. I can
see the old lifeboat house and the lifeboat museum here.
There's some lobster pots piled up on the quay. The cormorants
followed us and we're into some of the fishing boats in the
harbour here. And perched on the rooftop of the museum, Mya
points out two very different looking gulls.
MYA BAMBRICK: So we've got on the left hand side is a herring
gull. And on the right-hand side, we've got a much smaller
species of gull.
It's got a grey back, white underside, dark red legs and a
dark red bill. And that there is a black-headed gull.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: Why is it called a black-headed gull?
Because that guy's definitely not got a black head.
MYA BAMBRICK: So first of all, this bird is in winter plumage.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: Right.
MYA BAMBRICK: It just has what we call earmuffs, so little
black marks behind the eye. Whereas in the summer, when
they're in their breeding plumage, They actually have a
brown hood on their head.
So even in the summer, they don't have a black head.
Oh, helpful.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: But they're a much smaller, daintier looking
gull, aren't they?
MYA BAMBRICK: Well, they're one of our smallest species of gull.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: Are they going to bother me for my chips?
MYA BAMBRICK: Yeah, so they also are quite generalist feeders.
So you will see them come down, maybe not to steal your chips,
but definitely make the most of any that are discarded on the
ground.
But also they'll be chasing after fishing boats as well in
the harbour. So very much, again, opportunists as most gull
species are.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: As we make our way along the quay towards
Baiter Park for some more gull spotting, an unexpected visitor
appears.
MYA BAMBRICK: Kingfisher!
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: Kingfisher!
Oh, wow. Yeah, there he goes. Zoom!
MYA BAMBRICK: Yeah!
But this is the best place in the winter to see kingfishers in
Poole Harbour. Along these rocks as well, you can often scan
along and there'll be Cormorant, Shag. Sometimes there'll be
waders as well, like Oyster Catcher, Dunlin, Ring Plover.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: Right, there's always something to see.
MYA BAMBRICK: Yeah, even in such an urban area like this, it's
still so important for birds.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: Yeah.
We pause as Maya hands me her binoculars. She's spotted
something in the distance.
MYA BAMBRICK: See over there, just towards Baiter Park, you've
got a line of gulls.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: Yeah. Sitting beautifully on top of the goal
posts. Yeah. So what are we looking at there?
MYA BAMBRICK: So these are all black-headed gulls.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: Yeah, they really vary actually, don't
they? Some of them have almost got a full kind of hat on and
some of them have just got the earmuff.
MYA BAMBRICK: Exactly, so that's why if you're trying to get into
gulls, it's also important to learn the differences in
plumage. So what's their winter plumage, what's their breeding
plumage?
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: Yeah, I hadn't realised how much they'd vary
just between individuals.
MYA BAMBRICK: So I've been scanning along these flocks of
black-headed gulls to see if there are any what we call med
gulls for short. And there are. So they look quite similar, but
they kind of lack any black on the wings.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: They're very smart looking, aren't they?
MYA BAMBRICK: Yeah. So we call them white wingers.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: Oh, very nice.
MYA BAMBRICK: So you can see it's got a bit of a chunkier
build on black-headed gull, much brighter red. Yeah. And also
kind of a black mask.
When I was younger, one of my first memories of gulls was when
I was birding at Packham Harbour in Sussex. And I didn't know
what it was until I got my scope, had a look.
And it had this amazing, you know, bright red bill, bright
red legs. And I just thought it was absolutely stunning.
I didn't realise gulls could be that kind of colourful and
striking. Not that there's anything wrong with a lovely,
immature herring gull, but as sort of a beginner birder, that
really stood out to me.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: I had not seen them before, so it's a really
nice treat to see Mediterranean gulls.
MYA BAMBRICK: We've got about 300 breeding pairs of
Mediterranean gull. And that, again, goes towards that
designation of Poole Harbour being an SPA, a special
protection area.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: Pool Harbour was classified as an SPA in 1999
to safeguard its important bird populations, including rare,
vulnerable and migratory species. However, despite this
protection, gulls still face many challenges.
MYA BAMBRICK: Because they're a ground-nesting bird, they're
quite at risk from a number of species, carrion crow, raven,
foxes, badgers, even other gulls, so greater black-backed
gulls. You know, the second largest gull in the world will
predate eggs, chicks.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: Despite the perception that gulls are
abundant, all of our so-called common gull species are either
amber or red listed. This includes all the species we've
spotted today.
MYA BAMBRICK: As well as climate change impacting food
availability, the lack of fishing disregards the closing
of landfill sites and also a lack of nesting opportunities.
So it's not a particularly good outlook and which is why it's so
important that we survey them.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: Later this afternoon, Mya and a team of
volunteers will take part in a winter gull survey, a citizen
science project for the BTO.
This survey only happens once every 10 years and is said to be
quite a spectacle. And the best part, Maya has asked me to take
part.
MYA BAMBRICK: We're going to be meeting up at dusk to count the
gulls coming into roost. Oh, fantastic.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: Yeah, I will be there.
EMMA CAULFIELD: My name is Emma Caulfield and I'm a research
ecologist at the British Trust For Ornithology.
We are a citizen science-led research organisation. The
winter gull Survey began in 1953 to survey and produce population
estimates for our wintering population of gulls here in the
UK.
So the winter gulls survey is taking advantage of a behaviour
called roosting. Essentially, during the sunset. You might see
them flying overhead in lines of a couple of hundred coming off
pig fields or any other kind of feeding areas.
And they'll travel to larger water bodies. And they're just a
wonder to watch.
Multiple thousands of gulls will arrive onto this unassuming
water body. And suddenly it's a flurry of gull activity and
squawking and pecking and all the rest.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: Just a few hours ago we were down right in
the centre of the town in a very busy urban environment and we've
come probably only a couple of miles out here to Ham Common and
it's a beautiful heathland. We've got the sun setting behind
us.
And right on cue, here's Mya, and she's got someone else for
me to meet.
Hello, Paul. Really nice to meet you.
PAUL MORTON: Hello.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: Paul is one of the co-founders of Birds Of
Poole Harbour, a small charity that helps connect people with
the diverse bird life in the area.
PAUL MORTON: A bit of work, I think most people know us for,
is the osprey reintroduction, which we started in 2017. And
now in this landscape just here, we've got breeding ospreys,
which is the first in southern England for 200 years.
So we're small, but we're very, very active and quite
passionate, I guess.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: Can you tell us what we're here to do?
PAUL MORTON: This evening there's a big coordinated
national winter gull roost survey that's being carried out
at all the really important wetland sites, both coastal and
inland as well, so gravel pits and reservoirs.
And the reason it's happening is because gulls on the whole are a
group of birds that are sadly struggling for lots of different
reasons, breeding and in terms of their overwintering
populations, because the picture changes this time of year.
Not only do we have our local gulls, you know, some of the
birds that you saw earlier in town, the herring gulls. But we
also get big arrivals of gulls from all over Europe that come
and spend the winter here as well.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: And there's no guarantee how many gulls we will
see tonight.
PAUL MORTON: If it's a really torrid night, if it's a really
wet, windy, yucky, horrid night, it's probably tens and tens of
thousands.
But tonight, anything between 15,000 to 20,000.
But what we'll do is we'll go down to the beach and then we'll
go and count the gulls in our sector just here. And then
that's us done for the survey.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: Head down to the beach.
PAUL MORTON: Yeah, let's do it.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: Have a closer look.
Leaving the viewing point behind us, we carefully make our way
down the wooden steps onto the water's edge, where Paul and Mya
set up the scope, ready to begin the rather daunting task of
counting the gulls.
PAUL MORTON: Grab the scope, look through there, grab the
handle and just pan right and you'll see how many birds are
out there.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: Oh my word, yeah.
PAUL MORTON: Keep going, keep going. And there's thousands of
birds.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: What looked like just little sort of ripples
in the sand. And dark patches are all actually gulls.
PAUL MORTON: Yeah I'm going to start looking out with Mya now
and just checking this little finger of land out in front of
us. Ready Maya?
MYA BAMBRICK: Yeah ready to go.
PAUL MORTON: I'll scan three or four times first just so I've
got a rough idea in my head what's out there and roughly how
much is out there.
So I'm going to start counting Black-headed gulls.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: So we're only counting birds that are settled
on the water?
PAUL MORTON: Black-headed gulls are the smallest. The ones I
think people find trickier, things like common gulls, quite
cute looking but they're a bit nondescript and the greater
blackbacks are big bruisers, big loners.
MYA BAMBRICK: Just straight down from the wind turbine to the
right.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: Oh is that what I thought was a goose?
MYA BAMBRICK: Yes.
Not a goose, it's not a goose, it's a gull.
PAUL MORTON: There's two different gull calls there. So
the really high pitch, that's the herring gulls. And then the
ones you can hear that are going, "oh, oh" that's the
greater blackbacks.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: So we're just watching dozens of gulls flying
in really, really low over the water. And the sun's set now.
It's dropped behind the horizon.
But the light coming across the water with the gulls flying low
across is just extraordinarily beautiful.
PAUL MORTON: Come and have a look through the scope here? Can
you see all the birds sat on the island out there?
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: Oh yeah yeah yeah!
Whoa again when you get your eye in there's absolutely hundreds
of them!
PAUL MORTON: Yeah.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: Mostly gulls are they chilling out having a
chitter chatter before bed?
PAUL MORTON: Birds in the winds are all very sociable because
they're all looking to learn off each other where the best
feeding sites are and you know they get a lot of information
off of each other so yeah they're probably all just having
a bit of a catch-up at the moment.
The islands that they're sat on That's the gull colony in the
spring and summer.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: Ah, right.
PAUL MORTON: Those are the gull breeding islands.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: Yeah.
PAUL MORTON: When we first surveyed those in 2008, there
were about 8,500 pairs of black-headed gulls nesting on
these islands.
But with rising water levels, it's eroding the islands away.
When we went out and surveyed last year, we only had about
4,000.
One of the reasons Poole Harbour stays as beautiful as it is, I
mean, this landscape we've got in front of us, is like this
because we have important numbers of gulls coming here.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: Because it's protected.
PAUL MORTON: Exactly.
So making sure that nothing happens to those islands or
trying to safeguard that colony is really key to the whole
harbour's preservation over the next 20-odd years or forever,
really.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: So we're just about losing the light. There's
still a couple of straggler gulls hanging around, but mostly
I think they've headed off to roost now. Have you got an idea,
Paul, of how many we've managed to count this evening?
PAUL MORTON: My list here we've got just the two greater black
back gulls, 36 common gull, 41 herring gull, 14 common gull and
one med gull.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: As we pack away our scopes and binoculars,
the sun has finally set. I just want to say a massive thank you
to Paul and to Mya for showing me around today.
So I've learned that gulls are an incredibly diverse set of
species. There's no such thing as a seagull and I'm now a
fully-fledged gull fan.
They're incredibly intelligent birds and rather than get angry
about gulls when they steal our chips we just need to learn to
live with them and understand that they're just carving out an
ecological niche like any other successful species.
Thank you for listening to the very first episode of Wild
Tales. I hope you've enjoyed it do you have an amazing story
about the natural world I'd love to hear from you.
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