Gulls
The sharp, screaming call of gulls is easy to recognize. Just about everyone thinks of the sea when they hear this sound. Yet most of the gull species are more shorebirds or even land birds than true seabirds. The kittiwake is actually the only gull that we can rightly call a 'seabird'. Gulls brood in large, busy and noisy colonies. They lay two or three spotted eggs in a nest made from vegetation. The chicks hatch with a dark spotted downy plummage and can walk right away. Until they are mature, gulls remain spotted to some degree.
On Texel
Black-headed gulls, common gulls, lesser black-backed gulls and herring gulls brood on Texel. Little gulls and kittiwakes pass by here over the sea in the autumn and spring during migration. Great black-backed gulls are seen here throughout the year but they don't brood here. Their numbers in the breeding season are clearly less than in the winter.
