New year, new me. It’s a nice idea, at least. One tradition holds firm, though: the bracing new year walk. It’s a lovely day for it – bright, clear, not too cold. Gentle breeze, gusting to stiffish.
An urban birder’s rewards are often hard-won. As a result, you relish every sighting with unnatural fervour. Ooh, sparrows. Lovely. Nuthatch! Marvellous. Redwings! Smashing.
The buzzard is unusual. Here in genteel Dulwich, certainly. It’s on the ground in the distance, tearing at meal unknown. Large, craggy, emphatically non-urban in appearance, it’s being ignored by nine stock doves feeding nearby. Classy birds, slate grey all over, black button eye. The connoisseur’s pigeon.
And then there are the gulls. Hundreds of them, straggling loosely across the playing fields of Dulwich College. White blobs on green, the warm red brick of the college buildings offering a nice counterpoint.
I do a quick count, approximating groups of 10. I come to 300, give or take. Some are clustered together, others strung out, but all – as they usually are – are facing the same direction. There’s a simple explanation for this. It’s quicker and easier to take off into the wind, so they stand facing into it. If it shifts direction, so will the gulls.
The vast majority of this flock are black-headed gulls – small, as gulls go, and confusingly named. That head isn’t black, though, but rather the colour of good dark chocolate. And at this time of year – in their non-breeding plumage – the head is predominantly white, with vestigial stains behind each eye, sometimes giving the impression that the bird is wearing headphones.
Dotted through their ranks, large and brutish among their smaller cousins, is the odd herring gull – the seagull of popular contempt. Fierce eye, hooked bill, general impression of suppressed rage. Fond of a chip. As I watch, one of them breaks ranks and, apparently without motive, chases away its neighbour with a squawk and a flap. No wonder they have a bad reputation.
The flock settles. Apart from the occasional ripple as a couple of them decide it would be more comfortable to stand somewhere else, they seem content just to stand there, watching the world, saving energy, doing nothing – Zen masters in silver and white, setting an example to us all.
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