There is a colony of Black-headed Gulls on the lake next to the A45 which forms part of my local patch of Stanwick Lakes. And this year, some of the gulls with black heads really did have black heads because they were Mediterranean Gulls, a pair of which nested among the brown-headed Black-headed Gulls. These are the first nesting pair of Med Gulls for Northants: the full story is here.
This has been on the cards for quite a while but I and the very local birders, all rather expected that Summer Leys would get the first county record for breeding Med Gulls.
It’s a sign of the times that in central England we now have breeding gulls that were national rarities in my youth. Quite nice. I wonder what will be the surprising species that might be nesting at Stanwick Lakes in 40 years time?
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