Back to the Mediterraneans 28th February 2025

As has become my custom, today I made my annual visit to Hayling Island in Hampshire to view the pre-breeding congregation of Mediterranean Gulls that amass with Black headed Gulls on the now long defunct bunds of a former oyster farm situated in Langstone Harbour. 

Normally I go a little later in the second week of March but personal circumstances and an opportune spell of benign weather persuaded me to go today -  one of bright sun, crisp cold and a slight northeast breeze. Such conditions were as near ideal as possible for admiring and photographing these beautiful gulls, the only downside being my slightly premature visit meant the gulls were not all in their full breeding plumage with a good number yet to complete the transition from a white to all black head.

However I did manage to find some that had almost reached a perfection of plumage.

If I was a serious wildlife photographer and not a birder that photographs the birds he sees, I might have been disappointed but it was of little consequence to me as my main aim and delight was to see these gulls whatever the circumstance.In my opinion they are, when in breeding plumage one of the most beautiful gull species in the world.

Still some way to go to get its fully black hood

Predominantly white, even their grey backs are so pale they can appear almost white in strong sunlight harmonising with the rest of the plumage to create a luminescence that makes the gulls almost angelic in appearance when seen against a pure blue sky, as they were today

The head completes this gull's transformation into a creature of beauty, solid black with two white crescents surrounding the eyes, red eyelids and a crimson bill, all combine to provide a shock of colour to the otherwise all white plumage. And, I almost forgot. pillar box red legs and feet.

It is a two hour car ride from my northwest Oxfordshire home to Hayling Oyster Beds which have now become West Hayling Nature Reserve, accessed by an easily overlooked turn off from a busy road that leads to a car park with capacity for no more than ten cars overlooking Langstone Harbour. Today, arriving mid morning, the car park was predictably full but I managed to get a place just as a car conveniently departed.

A couple of hundred metres walk along a wet and muddy track beside the sea brings you to what remains of the oyster beds, with two bunds, whether by accident or design separated from the land and on which the gull colony have settled, as being surrounded by seawater at both low and high tide they are secure snd safe from predators and human disturbance. 

It is only as you reach the end of the track and come to the bunds that you become truly aware of the colony's visual and aural spectacle..

A cacophony of jarring sound assaults one's ears from the ceaseless cries of both Black headed and Mediterranean Gulls neither of which can be said to be tuneful.The Black headed Gull's peevish calls are prolonged and grating while the Mediterranean Gull's yelping exclamations are higher pitched and  more perfunctory. 

Visually the two bunds are a riot of white with gulls perched on rocks, standing, sitting, preening, displaying, fighting or flying. It is a sight you can never be bored with as the constant activity of the gulls plays out before you.

Pairs of both species fly high in the sky. the Mediterranean's especially vocal as they wheel about above me or fly out into the harbour just as others return, finding it impossible to remain silent as they home in on the raucous cries of their fellows on the bunds. 

The scene before you appears to be one of utter chaos and confusion but it is nothing of the sort for the birds are busy establishing themselves, displaying and deciding on a mate. It is an ornithological version of speed dating if you like which will lead to the formation of pairs  that will then commence  breeding..Few of the Mediterraneans remain here to nest, moving to the adjacent Langstone Harbour but the Black headed Gulls will breed here

The two species loosely keep to themselves on the bunds although a mixing is inevitable on such a crowded and limited area, although where and when they do come into contact the Mediterranean Gulls dominate.

Displaying Black headed Gulls

Gatherings of Mediterranean Gulls

Feeling I had taken enough images and with my camera arm beginning to ache I  stood back to embrace the moment and take in this spectacle, another of nature's wonders to appreciate and a sure sign of the coming Spring. At this time of reflection I  could not get out of my thoughts how fortunate I am to be able to live in a country where I can be free to enjoy this whilst others in distant lands live in fear of bombs and obliteration and tyrants and whose only hope is to survive until a better time might come.

The white gulls are almost emblematic of a peace that in this increasingly unsettled and dangerous world seems ever more elusive for so many.