Are there seagulls inland

He estimates there are , pairs of breeding urban gulls on rooftops around town and cities across the nation. In contrast, the number of rural gulls in the UK have declined significantly in recent decades, according to the RSPB. According to bird experts, there is technically no such thing as a seagull. There are, in fact, several different species of gull, mainly herring gulls and black-backed gulls in the UK. Since the s, the number of herring gulls has more than halved. In the herring gull was added to the Red List of Birds of Conservation Concern , which is drawn up by a group of charities and conservation organisations.

Red is the highest conservation priority, with urgent action deemed to be needed to protect the species. One of the main reasons for the falling numbers is that changes to fishing practices in the UK have resulted in food shortages for rural gulls, says Rock. Disease is another factor, according to the RSPB. The powerful great black-backed gulls, the largest gull species, has a wingspan of over 1.

The herring gulls on Tuckernuck feed mostly at sea, but do visit landfills on land too. Those nesting on islands in Jamaica Bay, just south of Brooklyn, take advantage of more processed human food from restaurant waste while herring gulls nest on buildings in the area.

Much of the birds' success in cities is due to their long lives, which allows the birds to build up an extensive memory of where and how to find food. Unlike garden songbirds which generally live years , gulls can live decades and accumulate valuable experience.

The oldest bird studied by Rock was a lesser black-backed gull fitted with a leg ring on a rooftop close to Bristol Bridge in , which lived for 28 years. The gull decided to stay for his final days in the sunshine near Malaga, in Spain, laughs Rock. The European record for lesser black-backed gulls is 34 years of age. The benefit of this long life, is that older gulls know all the tricks.

The venerable lesser black-backed gull he had been following had frequented the Gloucester landfill for many years and when the landfill shut he found other means. Closing landfills is little in the way of a barrier to urban gulls.

Outside Rome, the closure of the Malagrotta landfill in was "likely decisive in making them move more steadily inside the city", says Valeria Jennings, an ornithologist at the scientific association Ornis Italica. She is investigating why the city is benefiting gulls and what they are eating. Gulls have large brains that make them able to adapt quickly to the challenges and fast changing environment of urban areas. They are also extremely intelligent — there are reports of them dropping shellfish on to rocks to break them open or fishing by using pieces of bread as bait to tempt fish to the surface.

Other research suggests gulls also have a keen sense of smell and that they can detect airborne odours over long distances , helping them to navigate as they migrate.

With such an attuned sense of smell, it seems likely they can also use it track down sources of food. And while rubbish tips are no longer such expansive buffets for gulls — recycling and composting have reduced food waste — gulls can still find plenty to eat elsewhere in our cities and beyond. So good are they at finding food, that researchers in Spain suggest that monitoring gull movements could allow authorities identify illegal dumping sites.

Research using GPS trackers on urban less-black backed gulls suggests that a sense of timing is crucial for gull success. High ledges and windowsills of tall buildings in cities make perfect nesting sites for gulls as they offer protection from predators Credit: Alamy.

Anouk Spelt, a behavioural ecologist at Bristol University attached GPS tags to around a dozen of the birds in Bristol city centre and tracked their movements each day. A few also turned up for the opening school bell. Other gulls arrived at the same time each afternoon at a collection point where material for composting was piled up, picking from a pile of food scraps.

In the marine environment, gulls have to time their arrival to a feeding area with the tides and seasonal changes in food abundance. Our own daily lives follow similar regular patterns as shops open and close, schools have breaks in lessons and revellers leave bars at the end of the night.

Attaching GPS tags to such attentive creatures, however, is not a straightforward task in itself. Spelt says she has to swap between types of traps if she wants to catch gulls on the same rooftop as the birds watch and learn. Some gulls also appear to have learned to associate human behaviour with an easy meal.

They will preferentially peck at food that they have seen been handled by a human — perhaps picking up cues about the quality of the food from humans. But while the birds themselves are clearly watching us as we are snacking, they don't like to be watched themselves. Herring gulls will retreat far sooner from a human staring directly at them than if the person is staring at the ground. Spelt has discovered that the gulls she has been studying spend two-thirds of their time in suburban and urban areas , and the remainder in the surrounding countryside but not the seaside.

After a downpour, for example, they fly to parks and farmland to feed on earthworms emerging from wet soil. Spelt also noticed her tracked gulls zig-zagging across farm fields. The birds will also snatch up frogs, mice or anything else that gets disturbed. Black-headed gulls have been found to fly around 18km 11 miles on average as they forage for food when in their natural habitats. The furthest point Spelt's gulls foraged was 87km 54 miles , though most foraged within the city limits of 4km 2.

But the gulls also have some less than savoury habits. Every time I have been out ringing the large species on a rubbish dump in Essex, I have returned bloodied from holding the birds and with beak marks on my hands that took a week to fade.

But gulls are losing out at our hands much more than the other way around. A gull moment — 30 years or so — is coming to an end. Little food waste is now going into landfill.

We are still too wasteful, but now most gull-edible trash is being composted or incinerated. That is surely good, but it also means that the good times for herring and lesser black-backed and great black-backed gulls are over. They will have to shift their behaviour once more. How the seaside birds took over urban Britain. A large herring gull Larus argentatus argenteus on a roof high above the city.

Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo. Seagull rage: why humans and birds are at war in Britain. Read more. Topics Wildlife Waste Recycling Ethical and green living features. Reuse this content.