Hello Kitty

My mum was a keen birdwatcher and used to correct me if I talked about seagulls. “There’s no such thing as seagulls,” she’d tell me, “there are many different types of gulls.”

The kittiwake is a gull, which if any gull deserved to be called a seagull it would, as it spends most of its time out at sea, only breeding at the edges of land, on cliffs and ledges for a few months of the year. It is unlike common gulls, herring gulls and black headed gulls which happily come inland to scavenge for food. The kittiwake looks like a common gull but has black edged wing tips.

Kittiwakes breed in colonies from mid May to late July. I found out that there was a small colony nesting in the jagged ruined walls of Dunbar Castle next to the town’s harbour and was keen to see the chicks there.

You can easily get a very close view of the kittiwake nests at Dunbar without having to peer over the tops of vertiginous cliffs or strain your neck up at ledges from a bobbing boat. Nests are constructed on narrow ledges and are made of seaweed, mud and grass. There is not much room on the nests and sometimes chicks do fall to their deaths. Instinctively they stay as still as possible on the ledges.

Kittiwakes get their name from the distinctive call they make to each other when nesting close together, “kit-ee-wake, kit-ee-wake”.

A kittiwake lays 2 to 3 eggs and a pair will take turns to brood them over 28 days. The photo below was taken on the Isle of May last year.

Once hatched the chicks are white, as there is no need for camouflage on cliff edges. However they need to keep pretty still on the nests for about 40 to 45 days as only when they can fly can they safely leave the nest.

The chicks are born at different times. Here is a family where one chick is older and less fluffy than its sibling.

The adult pair below are being very lovey dovey to each other and the chick looks quite embarrassed at its parents!

Here is an adult in flight.

This bird seems to be yelling, “Clear Off !” to another. Or maybe its shouting to passers by, “I’m NOT a seagull I’m a kit-ee-wake, kit-ee-wake, kit-ee-wake!”