More than half the seabird species breeding on British and Irish coasts have declined over the last 20 years, according to the most comprehensive census to date. Eleven of 21 nesting seabirds species have fallen, five species have remained stable and five have increased, some because of targeted conservation work, according to the Seabirds Count […]
Tag: Lesser Black-backed Gull

6th and 13th August – Pennington Marsh
A free Saturday morning on 6th August and I couldn’t resist the pull of Pennington Marsh but a few beers the night before meant a slightly later start so I wasn’t in the car park at Lower Pennington Lane until 08:00 by which time the dog walking hordes had descended. I wandered a short way […]

Skomer Island – 14th July
Sarah, Tobias and I last visited Skomer on 6th July 2014 and so after a couple of years with no visit we were looking forward to getting back and Tobias was very excited about seeing Puffin. So after a good drive to Pembrokeshire on Thursday afternoon we had time for a short stop at Laugharne […]

POLL: Should the UK Government be allowed to cull birds?
A controversial cull of thousands of gulls in the UK will go ahead after a legal challenge by conservationists failed. The RSPB last week asked the high court to stop a cull of lesser black-backed gulls and herring gulls in Lancashire which had been sanctioned by environment secretary, Owen Paterson, at the request of aerospace […]

Controversial herring gull cull gets green light
Owen Paterson, the environment secretary, has given the green light to a controversial cull of endangered sea birds on the Ribble Estuary in Lancashire, the Guardian has learned. The RSPB said it is “extremely concerned” that the cull of up to 475 breeding pairs of herring gulls and 552 breeding pairs of lesser black-backed gulls […]

RSPB accused of hypocrisy for killing hundreds of birds on its reserves
The RSPB has admitted killing hundreds of birds on its reserves, prompting an accusation of “extraordinary hypocrisy” from the Countryside Alliance. The RSPB recently criticised the licenced destruction of buzzard eggs and nests to protect a pheasant shoot and said a cull of lesser black-backed gulls should be halted. But on Thursday the charity revealed […]

Government approved cull of endangered birds on Duke of Westminster’s Estate
Tens of thousands of endangered birds have been shot, trapped and poisoned on one of England’s largest shooting estates with the approval of the government agency responsible for protecting the species, a Guardian investigation has found. The government has licensed an annual cull of lesser black-backed gulls on the Abbeystead estate on the Bowland Fells […]

Jetty Park, 1/12/2013
Yesterday morning I went out to Jetty Park near Port Canaveral. I went there to see gulls. I wanted to see black-backed gulls, but I was also hoping to get better at identifying immature gulls. I’m getting pretty good at identifying adult gulls, but immatures still give me some trouble at times. I didn’t realize […]