Once, when trawling in a shrimping nobby in Liverpool Bay, I asked the skipper what were the birds swooping in our wake. “Gulls,” he said. “But what sort of gulls?” “Seagulls,” he rejoined. “He’s pulling my leg,” was most likely each other’s thought, so the work of sorting out shrimps, crabs and seaweed with our bits of wood went on — watching out for the possible stinging weaver fish which might be hiding in the mass of dredged up sea bed cluttering up the side deck.

True, most gulls have some features in common: a general whiteness, raucous voices, webbed feet. Size is deceptive with distance. Those speckly ones, too, can be confusing, the immature of several species. Relative size, however, soon becomes apparent. Habitat and manner of flight are also indicative. Binoculars will reveal the minor details — quite important if the interests of the watcher grow keener.

The behaviour patterns of birds round the year are of ever increasing fascination; their mysteries seem to increase with our knowledge. The birds we are going to note in these pages can at least be seen, for they frequent the open spaces of our seaboard, not hidden in the shadows and depths of vegetation.

Most of the wonderful photographs we see are taken from hides, with marvellous apparatus, but the humble and possibly ignorant dinghy cruiser need not be deterred by that. The writer, sitting quietly in the cockpit under the boom canopy, has spent hours watching Knot and Dunlin running about within a few feet, the newly exposed mud sizzling with life, thousands of birds picking and probing and twittering. Think of it! A few days ago these hosts were probably doing the same on the shores of the arctic tundra.

Bearing in mind that many boat sailors live far from the sea, so that their visits to the coast may be all too infrequent and of brief duration, perhaps no apology need be made if those notes comment first on the sea birds they are just bound to see. The Herring Gull and Black-headed Gull are not only ubiquitous on the coast but are also common far inland on farmland, reservoirs, lakes and sewage works.

The Herring Gull

We shall call this gull large; of all its tribe it is perhaps the one best known to seaside holiday makers. White head and front, pale grey above, with black and white wing tips. Orange bill, red tipped. Legs pink. The young are dark speckled grey and take three years to attain mature plumage, even though they have grown to full size.

This inter-tidal zone scavenger and expert catcher of scraps thrown from boat or promenade has learnt other tricks too. It flies up some fifty feet or so and drops from its beak the mussel or cockle it has picked up so as to crack it open on the ground below. I have seen this attempted repeatedly without success onto wet sand which was too soft.

The Herring Gull “mews” when it is pleased with life, goes “ack, ack, ack” when apprehensive, and screams raucously from wide open mouth when asserting itself, as on the breeding cliffs.

The Black—headed Gull

This is much smaller and more active than the Herring Gull. Gregarious and garrulous, with higher pitched voice, it forages everywhere over the shallows and inland, follows the plough in due season. The head is chocolate brown, bill and feet red. After the summer moult the head becomes white except for a black spot behind the eye.

On the sand and mud flats it may be seen treading the ground to scare small fry to the surface. During the hot summer days excited flocks of Black-headed Gulls come wheeling and swooping over the trees catching insects which have been carried aloft on the rising air currents.

It breeds in large colonies on coastal flats or moorland.