Seabird 2000

 

The  following was adapted from original text by Matthew Parsons in Seabird Populations of Britain and Ireland (with permission from A&C Black, London).

 

The Mediterranean Gull is the most recent addition to the species of seabirds breeding in Britain and Ireland. Yet it is probably more familiar to bird-watchers as a passage migrant and winter visitor, since although it has increased as a breeding species in recent decades its population in these islands numbers little more than 100 pairs, mostly on the south and south-east coasts of England.

 

The range of the Mediterranean Gull has expanded quite markedly over the last 50 years. A westward expansion started in Hungary, where it was breeding regularly by 1953, then into Germany and Belgium during the 1960s and the Netherlands by 1970. Range expansion also occurred in an eastward direction during the 1970s and 1980s. The first breeding occurrence of Mediterranean Gull in Britain was in 1968, at Needs Ore Point (Hampshire). Thereafter, a pair bred at Dungeness (Kent), in 1979, increasing to two pairs by 1985. A site in north Kent (which was later to become established as one of the major colonies in England) was colonised in 1983. Also during this period a handful of other breeding attempts were made, including pairings with Black-headed Gulls. The first breeding attempt in Ireland was in Antrim in 1995, followed by a pair nesting in Wexford in 1996.

 

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