Black-headed gull

Voice

Noisy and screeching, especially at colonies: a hoarse, drawn-out kwaaarr and a short, irritated kek-kek. Squabbles over food produce a laughing, swelling chatter. Audible all year, but fiercest from March to June over breeding colonies and at winter roosts and landfills in the half-light of dusk.

Identification

In summer a chocolate-brown hood ends sharply on the rear crown, leaving the nape white, with a thin white eyelid line. Bill and legs deep blood-red, mantle pale blue-grey. The wing shows a long white wedge along the outer primaries, with a black trailing edge and a dark underwing. In winter only a dark ear spot remains; first-years add a brown carpal bar, dark secondaries and a black tail band.

Confusion species

Mediterranean Gull is the main confusion species: bulkier, with a truly black hood reaching the nape, broad white eyelid crescents, a heavier red bill with a black band and wholly white wingtips without black. Little Gull is far smaller with rounded wingtips. Common Gull has a yellow-green bill, a dark eye and no hood, and black wingtips with white mirrors.

Habitat

Almost anywhere shallow water meets open land: dune lakes, saltmarsh, peat pools, sand pits, arable fields, pasture, harbours and city parks. Breeds in dense colonies on islets and in marshes. Feeds on earthworms behind the plough, insects taken in the air, small fish in shallow water and human waste.

Range and movements

Widespread throughout Europe. The Netherlands holds large colonies in the Delta, along the Wadden Sea and in peat marshes, and takes in huge winter numbers from Scandinavia and the Baltic. In Spain it is chiefly a winter visitor along the coast, in rice fields and on inland reservoirs, with a limited number of breeding colonies.

• Resident
• Breeding (summer)
• Winter
• Passage
• dark = core range, pale = thinly spread

Where and when to look

Walk past a marshland colony in March or April, when hoods are at their darkest and display is under way. In winter find a roost on a large water body and scan the incoming flocks in the last hour of light: Mediterranean and Little Gulls regularly travel in with them and are easiest to pick out then.

Conservation status

Still very numerous, but declining as a Dutch breeder through predation by foxes and large gulls, rank vegetation overgrowing colonies and the closure of landfills. Winter numbers remain high. As a colonial breeder it is sensitive to disturbance and to avian influenza, which has caused heavy local mortality in recent years.