So it was definitely a day to photograph things at close quarters, such as this Black-Headed Gull.
Another gull eyed a Cormorant with mild interest as it struggled to keep its balance on a chain.
A young Herring Gull was diving to try to bring up some object from the bottom of the lake that it could play with.
Another one, in the Diana fountain enclosure, had found a completely new toy, a bit of turf left over from the recent repairs to the grass.
After it had played with it for a while, its beak was full of earth, so it went over to the rapids to rinse it out.
A Grey Heron was back in last year's nest on the island.
There were few people in the park except at the funfair, so the small birds had come out of the bushes. This Chaffinch was in the Rose Garden ...
... where there was also a Dunnock looking for bugs in a flower bed.
A Wren was doing the same in a shrubbery next to the bridge.
There was still enough fallen rowan fruit on Buck Hill to attract a Song Thrush ...
... and several Blackbirds.
In the oak tree near the Albert Memorial, the female Little Owl was looking out of the hole. Even allowing for the fact that she had fluffed up her feathers against the morning chill, she is very large for a Little Owl and dwarfs her mate.
Gulls are always doing something interesting!
ReplyDeleteI could swear that Black-headed Gull is **laughing** or at the very least smiling to itself. What a wonderful picture! What would Gulls laugh at, I wonder? Clumsy cormorants, for sure!
Its taxonomic name is Chroicocephalus ridibundus, 'the leather-headed one who laughs a lot'. The genus name refers to the dark brown colour of its head when in breeding plumage; 'Black-Headed' is a misnomer. However, the Laughing Gull is a different species, Larus atricilla and, as the species name suggests, it really is black-headed. What a mess ornithologists have made.
DeleteYes, chocolate brown headed gull is nearer the truth. Try explaining this to primary children who visit bird reserves. "That's a black-headed gull but the one over there which has a jet black head is a Mediterranean gull even though this is the Irish sea"
DeleteIn Castillian Spanish we call the larus ridibundus (I refuse to call it chroicocephalus; over my dead body!) "laughing gull" (gaviota reidora), whereas Galicians call the same bird "weepy gull" (gaivota chorona). Yep, I bet the entire genus is having a laugh at us. Why have we made such a mess of things?
DeleteSpeaking of which, there has been sightings of a Forster's Tern in Galicia, and pretty much everybody and their aunt are taking a trip to watch it, much to the amusement of the local press, who cannot fathom what makes these wacky, wacky bird fanciers tick.
P.S.: in Spanish the Mediterranean Gull is called Gaviota cabecinegra, black-headed gull. Their English names trip me up more often than not.
DeleteThe Mediterranean Gull seems to be called 'black-headed', quite rightly, in many languages apart from Spanish: French, German, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Russian, Polish, Czech and Slovak from what I can find. The wretched ornithologists have now banished it to the genus Ichthyaetus, which means 'fish-eagle', which it is absolutely not. Pretty soon there will be nothing left in Larus except Herring Gulls and close relatives.
DeleteThe Black-Headed Gull is also 'laughing' in French and German, but 'common' in many other languages.
And the Common Gull ... oh dear, this could go on for ever.
Talking of laughing gulls. Last week I read that the 'wolf' noises on the Clash's London Calling were originally meant to be gull noises, which Joe Strummer was used to when he did "live by the river". As I finally figured how to sound the 'impossible' chesty G6 notes for karaoke. Jim
DeleteIt makes one proud to be British.
DeleteThe Mediterranean Gull is called 'black-headed' in Polish while the Audoin's Gull is 'Mediterranean'. Two other examples: the Caspian Gull is 'white-headed', The Great Black-backed Gull is 'saddled'.
ReplyDeleteWhen words fail there's always the Natural History Museum's alpha-numeric 'taxon version key' as last resort. The Black-headed Gull is: NHMSYS0020962539. Catchy eh? The degree to which this is internationally compatible I'm not sure.
ReplyDeleteI move to go back to Linnaeus.
DeleteBut then, I am also known for proposing to go back to using doves as modes of comunication, so...
Does Linnaeus appeal equally to Chinese biologists I sometimes wonder? Did other cultures have competing systems of classification, and if so when did the Linnaean system first achieve universal recognition?
DeleteThe Great Black-Backed Gull we call "gavión", which means "very very big Gull" (yes, really). At least something we can all agree on!
ReplyDeleteIn Texas, there is a pigeon mail delivery service (PigeonGram).
DeleteI'd sign up for that! Too bad they are no good as international carriers.
DeleteThe Welsh, too, call the black-headed gull 'black-headed': "gŵylan penddu". 'Gŵylan' [pronounced roughly "gouiy-lan"] is thought to be the origin of the English word "gull". (The counterpart white-headed bird, "pen gwyn", is interesting too!)
ReplyDeleteI'm not so sure about the laughter in the photo, though. I was reminded, very forcefully, of the Irish poet Brian Coffey's bestiary quatrain:
I am a gull.
From Mull.
You can't tell me.
Show me.
(Coffey was a philosopher, so the echo of Wittgenstein is doubtless no accident.)
The French word goéland, meaning a (usually big) gull, is from Breton gwelan or gouelan, cognate with the word in the related language Welsh.
Delete