The Black-headed Gull (Chroicocephalus ridibundus) is a small, lively gull, 35–39 cm long with a wingspan of 86–99 cm and a weight of 190–400 grams — and, despite its English name, its hood is not actually black but a dark chocolate-brown, a detail that is easy to miss at a distance. In breeding plumage it shows that dark hood against pale grey upperparts and a bright white leading edge on the outer wing, visible in flight, with dark red bill and legs; in winter the hood is lost, leaving a white head marked with a dark spot behind the eye, while juveniles show brown wing markings and a dark tail band.
Breeding almost throughout Sweden except in the mountains, with numbers concentrated around lowland lakes and wetlands, the Black-headed Gull has a population of 100,000–200,000 pairs, though the trend is declining. It nests in dense colonies — sometimes hundreds of pairs strong — on islands, in reedbeds and on floating vegetation in lakes and wetlands, and these colonies offer valuable shelter to other species that breed within them, such as grebes and dabbling ducks; a female typically lays three eggs. As an omnivore it feeds on insects, earthworms, small fish, seeds and refuse, foraging over fields, shores, open water and even in towns, often in flocks. Its raspy, laughing "krääk" and drawn-out "kre-aar," given in noisy choruses from the colonies, are behind its reputation as one of the country's most vocal waterbirds, and while most birds migrate south for winter, a growing number now remain in southern Sweden year-round.
Read about this species in Swedish →