Millions of birds migrate across Europe every year, from North to South and East to West, crossing borders and countries. Their migration comes to the delight of birdwatchers all over the European continent and beyond. In this third article dedicated migrant birds of Europe, you won’t read about transcontinental flights such as those of storks or honey buzzards across the Mediterranean and Sahara towards Africa. Instead, we will focus on some of the shorter-distance migrants which don’t necessarily leave our continent: gulls.

Do gulls really migrate? 

We are used to seeing these seabirds wherever there is enough water for them to feed and rest. By the sea, on lakes, and along the rivers of Europe live around a dozen of species of gulls. It is not uncommon to see them even some tens of kilometers inland. Nearly all of these species are at the same time migratory and non-migratory, depending on single populations.

Black-headed Gull populations of the British Islands, Northern Germany and along the Danube river, for example, breeds and live all year long in the same area. On the other hand, Scandinavian and north-eastern European groups of this same species retreat to south-east during winter.

A particular migratory bird is the Lesser Black-backed Gull. Some groups living in the British Isles, Belgian and Dutch coasts and the French and Spanish Atlantic coast doesn’t migrate, while those breeding in the Baltic migrate across central and eastern Europe to the Mediterranean and the Black Sea or even to Africa.

Some others are never sedentary. An indigenous European gull of this type is the Little Gull, also the smallest gull species native to Europe. A quite long distance migrator, this bird travel across the whole of Europe every year from Finland and Northern Russia through three directions, a northern one to the British Isles and the North Sea, a central one to Western Mediterranean, the Spanish Atlantic and the north African coast, a southern one to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Pontus.

Gulls in the urbanised world

In recent years, gulls have become more and more confident within the European urbanized environment. This has started causing problems, from simple disturbances caused by noise and mess from droppings, all the way up to attacks on humans and pets. Large gulls such as the Herring, the Yellow Legged and the Lesser Black-backed are usually the most aggressive species.

However, even other species are not to be underestimated. After all, these birds are predators and not otiose, cooing pigeons. Controlling gulls is not as easy as it may seem. In most of Europe, gulls are protected under local and national legislation together with other wild birds. Unless there are concerns on grounds of public health or public safety, city councils will rarely take action.

This means that it is often up to single citizens to face the nuisance these animals cause. The best method of controlling them is to deny them nesting places on buildings. Unfortunately, local authorities have no legal powers to force owners or occupiers of buildings to carry out works to their buildings to prevent birds from nesting. Nor do they have power to make them take action against birds that have nested, even if they are causing problems.

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Millions of birds migrate across Europe every year, from North to South and East to West, crossing borders and countries. Their migration comes to the delight of birdwatchers all over the European continent and beyond. When summer ends, it’s not just the storks who leave, but other species too. The honey buzzard is one of the birds of prey that packs up and flies southwards to sub-Saharan Africa.

The honey buzzard derives its name from the binomen Pernis Apivorus, literally meaning “bee-eating bird of prey”.  They are also generally known as perns, or common perns. Apivorus derives from the Latin apis, “bee” and –vorus, “eating”. Pernis, on the other hand, is supposed to be a corrupted form of pernes, a term used by Aristotle in his History of animals to identify birds of prey. And in fact, its diet is based on insects such as bees or wasps and their nests and larvaes, although it sometimes eats other insects, small mammals and birds or reptiles.

With the exception of the British isles, tundras and steppes, these birds breed in most of Europe. You can see them in amazingly large numbers over sea straits such as those of Gibraltar or Messina before their long flights over western Sahara. Numerous flocks alternatively pass through the Bosporus, before taking the eastern route towards Africa.

Migration

Sadly, migratory birds are a privileged target for poachers, and honey buzzards make no exception. Hundreds of those raptors get shoot-down every year, according to Italy’s LIPU (Italian League for Bird Protection). Most of these killings take place in the Italian regions of Calabria and Sicily, as well as in Malta. Luckily, though, such illegal practices are declining in Italy, thanks to tighter norms on hunting and increased wildlife guards patrols.

While concerning, these hunting practices haven’t considerably affected the western migration route taken by this species – which goes from Scandinavia to southern Spain. The honey buzzard remains classified as a species of “least concern” in terms of its conservation status. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, in fact, the honey buzzard does not qualify as threatened, near threatened, or conservation dependent.

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A journey that begins in Austria, then traverses the length of former Yugoslavia: Slovenia, then Croatia, Bosnia and Montenegro, over 500km of journey in total. It’s not a nostalgia trip through the Balkans, but the beginning of a very long flight, undertaken by black storks twice every year. The journey then progresses southward over Albania and Greece, crossing the Mediterranean. A brief stop in Cyrenaica preceeds the daring flight over the Sahara desert, finally reaching the storks’ destination: Chad.

These birds breed in continental Europe: Germany, Austria, Czechia and Poland. They also push further East: the Baltics, Belarus, Ukraine and Russia are all common breeding grounds for black storks. At the onset of summer, the storks begin their long journey towards the South, flying over the Balkans as mentioned, but also Italy, the Bosphorus and the Caucasus. Their southward migration will keep them from freezing during the harsh winters of continental Europe.

There’s also a westward route: sometimes storks opt for a flight over France and the Pyrenees, reaching Spain.  Carrying on towards Africa is a possibility, but some storks find Southern Spain to be more than sufficiently warm, and settle there for a cozy winter, alongside British expats tired of rainy days.

Article by Matteo Bonvicini

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1) Mass immigration is a Europe-wide phenomenon that would be best addressed by a common response. Refugees and migrants are coming on the shores of all Southern member states, not just Italy or Malta. That’s Europe’s Southern border.

2) A study showed how a European Army could let member states save money on defense spending, thanks to the economy of scale. We need it in these insecure times.

3) With the main world powers having almost no respect for human rights (China) or with expansionist ambitions (Russia) or an unpredictable president (USA), we need to show that a valid, peaceful alternative is possible.

Naive idealism is that of those who want to scale back to petty nations and closed borders: the world is changing, you are falling behind.

Really, Jean-Claude Juncker and Donald Tusk, what other evidence do we need?

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