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Friday, 31 July 2015

Update on the Breeding Gulls in Leicester

As you know, I have been keeping an eye on the gulls breeding at the old British Shoe warehouse in Leicester. I've also been worrying about the threat of the building being demolished during July. Well the building is still there and the gulls have had a successful breeding season much to the annoyance of some people. I counted around 80 juvenile Lesser Black-backed Gulls last night although the total is higher as this is just juveniles resting on lower roofs. I still can't see much of the roof the gulls are nesting on. I estimate that there is about 50 pairs of LBB Gulls and between 10 and 20 pairs of Herring Gulls.

I have enjoyed photographing the gulls flying between the buildings:

Juvenile Lesser Black-backed Gull

Juvenile Lesser Black-backed Gull

Juvenile Lesser Black-backed Gull

Juvenile Lesser Black-backed Gull

Adult Lesser Black-backed Gull

Adult Lesser Black-backed Gull (colour ringed  blue JMH, Gloucestershire)

Third Calendar Year Lesser Black-backed Gull

Second Calendar Year Lesser Black-backed Gull

Adult Herring Gull

Adult Herring Gull

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4 comments:

  1. colin2 August 2015 at 14:53

    Nice images mate, when it does get demolished hopefully they will just move to another roof Carl, there is enough roof space up there at this site??

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  2. Carl Baggott2 August 2015 at 16:12

    Hi Col, yes I'm sure they will move to another roof nearby. The only thing is they prefer old asbestos ones because they are cooler and the fixings stick up further than modern roof fixings. They can anchor the nests better building them around the taller fixings. Troon Industrial Estate has plenty of old roofs, so perhaps they will move there. The British Shoe building is ideal, as it is right next door to a food supply.. However, I don't think there is another large enough asbestos roof close by. We will see next year I guess.

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  3. Carl Baggott25 January 2016 at 21:10

    Update: the building the gulls nest on is still there at present and the demolition has been put back to October 2016. One more breeding season...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous24 January 2017 at 08:23

    You can find them all foraging the morning at Victoria park

    ReplyDelete