Returning to its breeding sites in the spring after a winter spent far out at
sea, the Kittiwake is a familiar sight around the coasts of Britain and Europe.
A pale, medium-sized gull with a ‘gentle’ expression and bright yellow bill, the
Kittiwake has been the subject of behavioural research since the late 1950s –
one of the longest running studies in the world. In this Poyser Monograph, John
Coulson summarises these decades of research, revealing amazing insights into
the life of these gulls, with wider implications for the behavioural ecology of
all colonial birds. There are sections on life at sea, nest-site selection,
breeding biology, feeding ecology, colony dynamics, moult, survivorship and
conservation.
This book is essential for academics working on colonial species, and is also of
great interest to birders who want to learn more about these elegant
cliff-dwelling birds.
Over more than 40 years of research, John
Coulson has made outstanding contributions to the behavioral ecology of
colonially breeding seabirds and our understanding of coloniality in birds. This
work includes distinguished long-term studies of the Kittiwake, of which this
book represents a detailed overview. A former Reader in Zoology at the
University of Durham, Coulson was awarded the Godman-Savin Medal by the British
Ornithologists’Union in 1992.
