sea gulls

thank you for the interest , i went to billingsgate fish market in London this morning to bulk purchase sprats for the gulls ect and wow never seen fish like it from all over the world , well worth a visit just to look i came home with 26 boxes of sprats at a great price , the gulls really go mad for them even more so if chopped up
 
Really enjoyed reading this thread as I also have a great interest in gulls, terns and all seabirds. Your set up looks really good and the photos are great.
Some years ago while walking my dog on a deserted winter beach, I found a badly injured juvenile Greater Black Back which I wrapped in my coat and brought to a local vet. He did'nt want to know, saying it had been badly injured by a raptor or fox and generally treated me as a bit of a nuisance. Eventually he reluctantly offered to euthanase the gull.
ps. the gull showed his gratitude by pecking lumps out of me and terrorising the dog lol.
 
hi it is a shame gulls are treated like vermin by some i get a few friends who frown upon them but most of them live nr the coast , i have changed the minds of a few and how many of them did not even known there is more than one species of gull , education is the way forward , got to admit the larger gulls sure do bite hard iv had a good few from them bless them ,
 
picked up a pore little black headed gull yesterday with a broken wing it was swimming up a dyke on my friends farm , took it to the vets today and they had to amputate the wing , after 10 mins of getting it home it was eating white bait and looked no worse for its ordeal , amazing how resilient gulls are fingers crossed it should be fine,
 
thank you i will get some more pics very soon , the little black headed is doing really well i have him/her in a insulated green house at night with another one and let them out if not to cold during the day only until the end of feb , as they both have only one wing they have lost half there insulation , great little caricatures tho ,
 
just a update had a great day with this brilliant weather we released 3 herring gulls back to the wild after allot of care and allot of fish , we took them down to folkstone harbour were there are many herring gulls and get fed regularly by locals, fingers crossed for there future,
 
leigh catherick said:
just a update had a great day with this brilliant weather we released 3 herring gulls back to the wild after allot of care and allot of fish , we took them down to folkstone harbour were there are many herring gulls and get fed regularly by locals, fingers crossed for there future,
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Well done! Great to hear they done so well.
 
thank you it was great keeping them here , one had been shot in wing and the other 2 just would not fly , the 2 that wouldn't fly came from Canterbury tip but they both were not under weight and we couldn't see any kind of damage or injury's , it was great to see them fly off ,
 
Was it just because they were underweight that was preventing them from flying? Have you witnessed anymore breeding behaviour ?
 
hi that was the strange thing they were in good condition , the common gulls are getting very vocal now , the grey gulls are really going for it with amazing male display towards his female bowing his head under and over hers , the noises they make make are nothing as you would expect from gulls a real pleasure to watch ,
 
at last we let the black headed gulls out side all 3 of them have lost half a wing but are doing great they go great guns for maggots and worms, i hope to build up a few more as time goes by and im sure they will breed one day well i hope so anyway ,
 

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I too am very fond of gulls, your grey gulls are awesome ! I've been thinking about starting my own private collection for a while now, but before I need to move to a country where laws are less strict than here in France ! It's easier to get a permit to kill a gull than to own one ! Just for information how did you get your gulls ? I guess the native species are rescue, but the "exotic" species came from zoos, did you buy the gulls from them ? It's a shame they're so rare in private hands as well as in public institutions, gulls are very interesting and clever birds.
 
hi i purchased the blacktailed from Holland from a dealer , the common gulls came from a private collector in Belgium, the greys were from a uk zoo , the black headed are from rescue centres , there are a few zoos around Europe who keep gulls iv not found any other private keepers of them as yet , it is a shame as they are fantastic birds to keep i get many hours enjoyment watching them they are great caricatures , the little black headed are looking very promising to breed it looks like i have 2 male and the one female and one male guards her constantly and the female is starting to look heavy , considering all 3 have lost best part of one wing in the last 6 months its amazing tough little birds they sure get my vote , do think about giving some rescue birds a home if you can in France its well worth it,
 
Hi thanks for your reply, unfortunately the owning of a gull in France requires a license, and it may take as long as five years to be delivered ! Plus the gulls that can't be released are often euthanized. I'd rather move to the Netherlands or Germany lol.
If you don't mind, I have some more questions re your gulls. Is it true that grey gulls tend to be nocturnal ? Did the Paignton Zoo sell them to you ? If you obtain chicks someday with these birds, I'll be more than interested, given they're really beautiful and pretty unusual as they only nest in the Atacama Desert.
By the way, what is the name of the Dutch dealer from whom you obtained the black-tailed gulls ?
 
hi same here 99.9 % of none releasable gulls are euthanized its a real shame , grey gulls are more active at night and very vocal even more so on a full moon , luckily i don't have any nr neighbours , yes they came from paignton zoo , they never seem to perch i have them in a large aviary with many large perches ect but they do stand on upright logs but not the tall ones , the display call is something else with both of them head bowing then throwing there heads up in the air in turn , i will pm you on bird trader in holland ,
 
Hi thank you very much it's very useful. My favorite gulls are the great black-backed gull, the great black-headed gull and the kelp gull. I know a city in France which is crowded with GBB gulls, they're nesting almost everywhere. There's a zoo in Czech Republic with GBH gulls on display, hopefully they'll breed and the offspring is made available for private collectors. As for the kelp gulls, I don't know at all if they're found in the Northern Hemisphere. Have you ever heard of these being kept ?
 
hi i do known of a rescue centre here in uk that have a pr of greater black backed and they breed every year and they release the young , i am hoping to get some one day even if rescue ones they are awesome looking birds , as for any others i don't no of, i am in always looking and searching for info about gulls and anyone who keeps them ,
 
i took a few pics today the commons have built there nests now , the greys are looking like they will breed , and iv just purchased some black headed gull chicks from Belgium and hope to get grey headed gulls later this year ,
 

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