As winter visitors prepare to leave the Solent, a new wave of arrivals gather along our coastline – the gulls who return each spring to breed.
Alana, from our monitoring team, has put together this breeding season primer to the gulls you’re most likely to see nesting on our shores over the coming months.
Early arrivals: black-headed and Mediterranean gulls
The breeding season kicks off with a very loud and slightly abrasive “ha-ha” from the black-headed gulls and a very cute “meow” from the Mediterranean gulls (see top picture). These two smaller species are among the first to settle, often congregating in large numbers at sites like the RSPB’s Langstone Harbour Oysterbeds.
By mid‑March, some of these small but feisty gulls are already choosing mates and starting to lay eggs, making them very early starters. Chicks can start hatching from late April onwards and fledglings can be seen from early June.
Black-headed gulls nesting on shingle shores
The arrival of larger gulls
While these smaller gulls are incubating their eggs, larger gull species, including herring gulls, great black-backed and lesser black-backed gulls, begin to join the Solent’s year-round gulls. You’ll see herring gulls year-round on the Solent coast – and inland – doing their little tippy tap patting of the ground dance to bring worms and other food to the surface.
These gull species begin choosing their mates and nesting sites from mid-March onwards, often returning to the same spots year after year. Eggs are laid as early as mid-April and since these larger gull species take slightly longer to incubate and fledge, hatched chicks from can be seen from mid-June and fledglings from late July to early August.
A herring gull at its nest
Much like any parent (human or bird), our variety of gull species along the Solent are most protective and defensive during the breeding season. Gulls are dutiful parents protecting their incubating eggs and newly hatched chicks from natural predators and human disturbance, so be careful to give these proud parents a very, very, wide berth during nesting season or be prepared to be dived at relentlessly for getting too close to the young.
Breeding season is the most demanding and vulnerable time of year for gulls. This is when human disturbance can have the greatest impact – even brief interruptions can cause adults to leave nests exposed to predators or harsh weather.
Giving gulls plenty of space is one of the simplest and most effective ways to support a successful breeding season.
