Species: Herring gull

Gulls breeding on rooftops have had a lot of bad press over the years and have become increasingly unwanted. Most people who live or work in an urban gull colony dislike them or even hate them, and the problems they present (noise, mess, damage and aggression) are well-documented. But whilst we know a lot about gulls in the wild, we know precious little about gulls in town. In a small way, that’s about to change…

For many, Herring gulls all look the same. Well, not any more – four of them (two males and two females) were trapped at their nests in St Ives, Cornwall recently and fitted with UvA-BiTS GPS loggers. They are the first roof-nesting gulls ever to have been tagged in this way in Britain. We can now begin the process of finding out who they really are as opposed to having to guess.

This website is designed to allow you to share in our investigations and follow these ground-breaking, St Ives Herring Gulls from spring 2014 – spring 2015. In May 2015 the base station in St. Ives was dismantled, and the birds can no longer be followed in near real time.

Contact persons, funders and participants

Peter Rock

Matt Ainsworth

Support: Judy Shamoun-Baranes, University of Amsterdam Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics / Instituut voor Biodiversiteit en Ecosysteem Dynamica (IBED) shamoun@uva.nl