With nature and a camera

Chapter VII. Sea-birds and their haunts

Gathering gulls' eggs

Nest of black-headed gull

[page 272]

We have twice visited Scoulton Mere, in Norfolk, and punted across to the boggy reed-clad island in the middle of it, where breed one of the largest colonies of Black-headed Gulls to be met with in the British Isles. When within seven or eight miles of the Mere the visitor becomes aware of the presence of the birds, for they are in every field where the plough is at work, following it just like rooks. Their eggs are collected at the beginning of the season and sold for consumption as human food.

Young great black-backed gulls

[page 273]

Some idea may be gathered of the magnitude of this colony when it is mentioned that as many as 20,000 eggs have been gathered in a single spring. The outside number of a clutch of Black-headed Gull's eggs is three; and although the birds lay again when robbed, second efforts are not molested.

Scoulton Mere

When we visited Scoulton in the summer of 1895, the rats appeared to be committing great havoc amongst the young birds, judging from the numbers of dead and partly devoured ones we saw lying about.

Razorbill and egg