A friend from the Netherlands visited South Walney Reserve last week. From the MNA visit in May amid dive-bombing gulls protecting their newly laid eggs there has been a sorry outcome 🙁
“We were here last week and had an awful shock, we were talking to the Warden here and she said there wasn’t one successful fledge from any of this years chicks whether they were the black backed or herring gulls. Foxes had killed them all. They had put up an electric fence around some of the colony after the foxes had got to the ones around the outside but then they caused utter distruction and panic when they wer able to jump in to the fences area but not get out again.
There was such an eeriness and quiet without the racket the chicks make and adult birds sqwarking, protecting young and dive bombing us – awful! “