I remember taking this photograph for two reasons; firstly because I was annoyed with myself for not knowing what what this seagull was called but more importantly, as it turned out, because it led me to make a stupidly hubristic promise to myself that I wouldn’t, any more, walk past anything I couldn’t name. With 20/20 retrospective vision I wish I’d left “walk on by” as a heading on my mental spreadsheet but in fact I immediately left the quayside at St Ives to find a bookshop to help end my personal dark age. So I ended up with the worst of all worlds – not knowing the proper names of most plants, birds, fungi, lichens, insects and mammals but feeling very troubled when I failed.
The reason I’m writing this today is that after a talk at the Bath Natural History Society on Tuesday I was chatting to the speaker, Lucy Starling and she wondered aloud where all the black-headed gulls had gone. Back in 2016 by the time I’d figured out what they were; (complicated by the fact that they don’t have black heads at all during the winter but just a grey streak like a question mark behind the ear); I realized that there were dozens if not hundreds of them in Bath, flocking together on the green outside our flat in the mornings. They are lovely little birds – small seagulls – but they have declined so much that they’ve now been listed with an amber warning.
So why has this happened? Well, rather carelessly I attributed this to the theft by commercial foragers of thousands of their eggs from nesting sites on the South coast a few years ago for sale to high end restaurants; which is astonishing but true! But in any case the trend has been towards them living inland, and there are other factors – avian flu, lack of nesting space (the good people of Bath are highly intolerant of gulls, although their bird identification skills are no better than mine were). We have three species in Bath. The principal culprits when it comes to early morning noise, rubbish bag spreading and stealing ice creams would be herring gulls or less likely lesser black backed gulls. Herring gulls too are in decline. We don’t have greater black backed gulls here but they’re the ones with the terrifying eyes that could turn you to stone. They’ve all been affected by climate change; absence of food due to changing farming practices and loss of habitat. So below are – on the left a herring gull (pale grey wings and pink legs) and on the right a lesser black-backed gull (darker grey, almost black with yellow legs).
From my entirely non-scientific survey through the living room window, I’d say that aside from the odd stragglers up and down the river, the large gatherings of black headed gulls have gone, possibly for ever.
I didn’t mention one other contributor to the decline and that’s predation. The photo above was taken across the river from St John’s Church – which houses a pair of peregrine falcons for whom a small gull would barely amount to elevenses.
So just to make a more complete list of urban birds we’d have to add the three gulls; kingfishers near the Royal Mail sorting office; the well known Widcombe herons whose heronry is above the Honda dealership; plus the jackdaws, crows, magpies, and jays representing the corvids and there are cormorants fishing in the river. Then there are blackbirds and pigeons, robins but not, sadly, sparrows or starlings close to us. There are swifts in the summer, with swallows and house-martins and then rarer appearances from the avian odds and sods categories. The red kites don’t seem to cross the river but buzzards are often seen over the allotment. The first night after we moved in, we heard tawny owls calling, but never since – however our neighbour Charlie says he still hears them regularly. All in all – and this is just an off the top of my head list – simply knowing their names has given me enormous pleasure over the years. It creates a feeling of belonging when you know the locals by name.
I’ve written a lot about urban plants on this blog, and when I get the fungi organized I’ll be able to name many more of them. My point in banging on about urban wildlife is that it’s right outside the door and so walking to Sainsbury’s can be as much of a field-trip as a long drive to Cornwall (which we also do regularly of course). Possibly the best place to find wildlife is where you are. Of course I’m not saying that travelling to hotspots isn’t worth it because you’ll never learn more quickly than when you walk with an expert who’s also a good teacher. But an hour’s mild bewilderment followed by a couple of hours of research will drive the message home more. Both is best.
A quick trip to America
A further update to the is it/isn’t it? problem with a tree full of black apples on the allotment site. After a lot of searching online we think we’ve finally nailed it down to the Arkansas Black mainly due to its extraordinary, complex flavour. The perfume of the flesh eaten raw is – as I previously said – like apple and custard in one bite. Today Madame peeled and stewed a small number and they were equally delicious. Just like a Cox, they kept their texture very well and didn’t reduce to a pulp as would a bramley – so they’d be great for a French style open apple tart. The only problem is we can’t find a UK nursery who could provide it on a dwarfing or semi dwarfing rootstock. Madame is going to try growing it from a cutting but apparently it’s hard to do and it would take years to fruit. She could polish up on her grafting skills too! It’s a perfect tree for our frost prone allotment because it will grow in almost any zone, is self fertile and very disease resistant. Plus it stores well and harvests in November. What’s not to like? I could buy it from a nursery in Montana but I don’t think the car would get there.
