Bird of the Month
Robin Douglas-home, soldier, pianist and copywriter of ‘Have a break, have a Kit Kat’, wrote a novel called Hot for Certainties (1964).
The main character, a young national service officer, finishes the book parked in the rain on the Mall, sobbing drunken tears of anger and self-pity. Then he grabs ‘a cardboard box full of gulls’ eggs’, destined for his mother’s wedding breakfast, walks unsteadily across the road and climbs the steps of the Victoria Memorial.
‘He picked out a gull’s egg from the box and flung it at the unsmiling head… Another and another he flung, bawling out curses as the eggs cracked and splashed on the impervious, whitemarble figure.’ A policeman appears with a torch. ‘Gulls’ eggs, eh? You must be well-lined to be throwing these about.’ After identity is established, he is let off with a deferential caution. End of novel.
‘Gulls’ eggs’ are those of the blackheaded gull ( Chroicocephalus ridibundus); an annual highlight for epicures. In the UK, they are the only wild-bird eggs it is legal to collect (those of pheasants and quails are farmed). The few licence-holders must log their take: 27,842 eggs were sold in the 2015 season (1st April-15th May), each costing up to £10. It contrasts with our annual consumption of 13 million hens’ eggs.
Gulls’ eggs are a treat indeed: beautiful, with their pointed, freckled, jade shells, and easy to peel; the whites faintly translucent, and yolks pink, their taste delicate. They are usually sold hard-boiled. Douglas-home is right. Order them uncooked. Birders are happy with their consumption. Black-headeds nest early and occupy the empty sites of migrant terns. Gulls are predatory; so they also eat other species’ eggs and nestlings.
They are the most ubiquitous and land-dependent of Laridae, the ones on playing fields and that follow the ploughing tractor. The black – actually dark brown – hood is breeding plumage and applies only from late spring to early autumn. Most of the year, the head is white with a ‘beauty’ spot, varying degrees of smudge appearing as summer and winter approach. Juveniles do not acquire a hood until they are two years old.
Winter-plumaged black-headeds are the ones most of us see, since that is when the 130,000 resident breeding pairs, which disappear to their bogs and wetlands to nest, re-colonise city parks and lakes. Their numbers are boosted by two million winter migrants from the Continent.
It is then the fun starts, as no bird is so enjoyable to feed. Almost a century ago, Sir Edward Grey wrote, ‘In London, black-headed gulls, that are entirely wild birds, come in numbers in autumn and winter, and will feed, or at any rate snatch food from the hand’ ( The Charm of Birds). The best game is to throw bread in the air to test their astonishing aerial agility – no wonder they also hawk for insects. The ‘laughing’ (Latin ridibundus) and carping (Kehaar, the black-headed’s name in Watership Down) birds become as excited as the throwers, the frenzy attracting others from far and wide.