It might look fluffy and cute but this young Lesser Black-backed Gull was already enjoying the fruits of a predatory lifestyle when I photographed it at the end of July growing fat on a diet of freshly fledged Pufflings! While sitting, watching Puffins go in and out of their burrows to go out and catch fish for their chicks and then return to feed them I witnessed frequent attacks on them by adult Lesser Black-backed Gulls which were nesting alongside the Puffins in some numbers on Staple Island off the northeast coast of England. The gulls were attacking the Puffins mostly in acts of kleptoparasitism but also in actual attacks on adult Puffins. Furthermore, in a 5 minute period of watching this I also saw 4 emerging Puffin chicks taken at the mouth of the burrow by adult gulls and immediately fed to the waiting young gulls including the one pictured here.

Young Lesser Black-backed Gull

This level of efficiency as a predator made me wonder if the gulls here could have a significant impact on the Puffin population given that Atlantic Puffin is a species experiencing problems through much of its range. As it happens, Puffins in this part of the country have a stable population but surely with an abundance of predators like this nestlings of many species would be under threat?

Adult Lesser Black-backed Gull

I even witnessed freshly fledged Lesser Black-backed Gulls cruising around the island and attacking Puffins frequently, so presumably they are learning this behaviour from their parents at the youngest of ages.

Juvenile Lesser Black-backed Gull

Most people would probably think of gulls eating mostly fish or perhaps scavenging for left-overs but in fact they can be very aggressive and have a far more successful kill rate than many raptors that we would more commonly associate with catching prey. It was not just on the Farne Islands that I have recently seen Lesser Black-backed Gulls at their most aggressive, a recent trip to Bough Beech Reservoir in Kent gave me the chance to watch an adult of this species repeatedly attack a group of Carrion Crows that were feeding on a dead fish. Crows are no pushovers in a fight themselves so it was amazing to see the gull actually seize a crow in one attack.

Lesser Black-backed Gull attack

Crows are one thing but Puffins are cute, the type of bird that appeals to all, and could it be that gull predation would aggravate the decline in Puffins? A little research on the internet revealed an interesting paper that looks at the relationship between Great Black-backed Gulls and Puffins in Scotland – The dynamics of gull-puffin interactions: implications for management.

Great Black-backed Gulls eating an adult Puffin

The above photo shows an adult Great Black-backed Gull and a juvenile feeding on an adult Puffin that was caught by the adult gull. The paper mentions that some gulls are specialists in Puffin predation and killed over 60 birds in a season! The average was lower but still significant at over 30 and it was only in Puffin populations that were increasing that gull predation would not result in the population of a Puffin colony declining. This adult surveying his realm certainly looks like an intimidating predator.

Great Black-backed Gull

With this in mind it is quite likely that, among other things, the predation of Puffins on the Farne Islands is resulting in a gradual decline of the population. Will this lead to control of the gulls by lethal or other means? Certainly other avian predators have been controlled to protect rare and declining species in UK, often causing controversy as this blog post discusses: RSPB criticised for protecting birds…fancy that? Whatever your opinion on that it does at least highlight how complex conservation can be.