By Philippa Hadlow

Reading time: 13 minutes 

One day, at the end of our narrow country road at the intersection, I came across Basil. He wasn’t known as such back then. At that time, in 2014, he was a motley grey-brown bird I spotted sitting uncomfortably conspicuous, far from where he’d prefer to be. Hunched miserably in a clump of ink weed, he wasn’t moving much, and I was able to inspect him, wrap him in a handy cardigan and take him home.

My partner received the interesting message: “I have popped a shag in the rabbit cage.” In my concern, I had mixed him up with a black-footed shag. Basil was, in fact, a juvenile black-backed gull.

Basil’s wing was injured but not broken and as he seemed happy to be safe and sound in Pixi the rabbit’s hutch, he stayed there for several days. He didn’t mind the identity clashes encountered thus far; first with his fellow coastal mate, the shag (Phalacrocorax), and then with a rabbit (Lagomorph). His focus was all on getting his wing back to full operable span, and its potential size was one thing he and Pixi the Flemish giant did have in common. Basil was aiming for 1.7m – a mighty effort and well needed for a long life in the skies and migration in spring to various nesting sites.

As Basil’s Latin genus is Larus d. dominicanus, you would assume that one of those breeding destinations might be the sweetly balmy Dominican Republic isles in the Caribbean. Incorrect.

Basil’s species’ ancestors were first labelled Larus (Greek laros meaning large seabird) by Carl Linnaeus in 1758. Linnaeus was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who is known as the “father of modern taxonomy”. He was responsible for establishing the three kingdoms, namely Regnum Animale (animal), Regnum Vegetabile (vegetable) and Regnum Lapideum (mineral) as the starting points of biological nomenclature.

In his 10^th edition of Systema Naturae, Linnaeus described 554 species of bird within the class ‘Aves’ and gave each a binomial name composed of two parts, most often in a Latinised form. His work was further developed by another leader in natural science, German zoologist Hinrich Lichtenstein.

Lichtenstein was an enterprising and multi-talented young chap whose earlier life included acting as the personal physician of the governor of the Cape of Good Hope between 1802 and 1806. In 1823, he identified a subspecies of the gull Larus and chose the name Larus d. dominicanus which complimented its pleasing aesthetic. Basil’s feathering is a sharp contrast of black on white, resembling the garb of the Roman Catholic Dominican order of friars, first established in 1215. The members of this Dominican order were referred to as Black Friars because of the black cappa or cloak they wore over their white habits. The black-backed gull emulates the look admirably but as the friars were opposed to anything ‘novel’, I wonder how they would have felt at being the nomenclature inspiration for a new subspecies of gull – particularly as the naming was not related to the worthiness of their teachings but instead to the religious fashion of their order!

This approving nod to the Dominican friars aside, during the course of his career, Lichtenstein was responsible for naming not only L. d. dominicanus but also the taxonomy of 244 bird species and dozens of other creatures. In 1841, his passion for beasts both feathered and four-legged led him to coerce King Frederick William IV of Prussia to donate the grounds of his pheasantry to become the Berlin Zoological Gardens – a zoo now recognised for its innovative species protection projects, and which houses the most animal species worldwide. Several animals were ascribed to Lichtenstein’s  name, including the Western Indian Ocean seahorse, Hippocampus lichtensteinii as well as a genus of flowering plant Lichtensteinia from South Africa, in honour of his taxonomy work.

Back home and a hundred years on, my friendship with Basil was also flowering. This bird – also known as the Dominican gull; southern black-backed gull; and kelp gull – was keen on his newly adopted, similarly two-legged human family.

I took on the mantle of caring for him with no regard to others’ scathing comments about black-backs being “common, bolshy, screechy birds” nor to rude remarks about landfill dumps and fish and chips. I couldn’t deny that historically, ‘gull’ as a slang word has had a rough reputation. In the depression of the 1930s, wharf labourers waiting for scraps of work were called seagulls, and in rugby, a seagull is a loose forward who scavenges for slim pickings on the edges of tight play.

But still, in my opinion, Basil was beautiful. Even as a youngster he was huge (black-backs are the largest gull in New Zealand) and though still encumbered with the dull brown, smudgy juvenile plumage that would remain, lightening gradually with age until his first adult moult at three years old, I could see his potential. I bought fish bait pilchards and nurtured him. I’d spray him with the hose for minutes on end and even though it was not the salty stuff he’d no doubt prefer, he would stand fully facing the water and move his head side to side, loving it.

In due course, Basil’s wing healed perfectly; I waved him off the property, gave the spare bag of bait to a couple of fishing types and never expected to see my juvenile black-backed gull again.

Later on that day, no doubt missing his easy feed of tasty pilchards, Basil appeared again, silently silhouetted in the early evening sky. He made a couple of circuits of his ‘hometown’ imprinting the landmark to memory, before landing quite confidently on top of the chicken coop.

There we continued to feed him, morning, and night. I swung a deal with the fish and chip restaurant in town, pretending I needed scraps of fish for my cat (I suspected the owner might consider me mad for feeding a noisy, pestiferous seagull). In time, Peter came on board with Basil, too – in fact, I have a sneaky feeling he was fascinated – and so supplied (for a nominal fee) offcuts of the luxurious ling, gurnard, and snapper not suitable as stock-base for his fish chowder. FYI, Basil’s meal would always have to be served in a blue ice-cream container (he refused to acknowledge anything else) –  and he’d come in every day, each year, from February until around May.

 

Flying away then for the breeding season he would assumedly, once mature at age four, settle as part of a colony (numbering 100 pairs, sometimes 1,000) on some pleasant spot and co-incubate and raise two or three chicks. His breeding range might extend throughout the Southern Hemisphere  – anywhere from South America, Antarctica, the subtropical Kermadec Islands, Norfolk Island, or to Soames Island in the Wellington Harbour.

After the breeding season, around February the following year, Basil always comes ‘home’ – hungry, alone, and looking slightly harassed. It’s amazing that he chooses to break away from his colony to visit us, feed, and restore energy.

He’s very possessive; our place is his place and any other gull daring to come near is warded off with both flighty arrogance and brute force. Basil suffers no competition lightly and his regular care at the hands of humans has allowed him to grow into a very powerful bird, so I suspect Basil would be in hot demand as a reproductive partner.

Black-backs are usually monogamous for the season, and the excellent survival rate of their offspring reflects a happy union based on an abundance of food resources. Black-backed gulls are scavengers who will eat wherever the opportunity arises. And yes, rubbish tips, cities, beachside parks, and wharves offering fish offal are known to be favourite spots – they’re not fussy. They will follow the fodder, so to speak, and breed wherever there’s an easy feed.

In 2016, aged 10, my daughter beat three other schools’ contestants in the cluster speech comps with her three-minute dissertation on Basil. A trophy and a book voucher were her prizes, and no doubt her words were compelling, but perhaps the audience and judge were mostly won over by her description of Basil spending time in local farmers’ paddocks “feasting on the afterbirth of neighbouring cows”. As they are arch freeloaders, it was an accurate observation, and a possible explanation for their longevity which can extend from 14-28 years.

That longevity has boosted the black-backed gulls population number to approximately two million and they are one of only two native bird species not afforded protection under the Wildlife Act 1953. The other is the spur-winged plover – a bird, in my opinion, much more deserving of the “screechy, bolshy” description than Basil.

Regarded as a predatory nuisance in some parts of New Zealand, the Department of Conservation has undertaken culling programmes of black-backs over the past decade to reduce their impact on threatened shorebirds such as the New Zealand dotterel, oyster catcher, shore plover and fairy tern.

However, apparently, his predatory nature has also been put to good use by Māori who have trained them in the past to eat the caterpillar Agrius convolvuli that infests and decimates kumara (sweet potatoes) crops (Best, Elsdon, 1942).

In my opinion, Basil needs no purpose but to continue tidying up humankind’s penchant for sloppy food scrap disposal and the messy afterbirths of farm animals. I wonder how increasingly-effective waste management systems might impact on the black-back’s future? I for one, am happy to keep supplying him with handouts and a bon vivant existence and in return, to appreciate and enjoy the entertainment of his loyal patronage.

Basil well suits the name appointed by Māori – the magnificent-sounding: karoro.

Tangi amio ana te karoro i te awa.
Nga tohu o te ipo unuhia noatia.

The black-backed gulls circle the channel, crying.
They are signs my beloved is taken from me.

— Quoted in The Natural World of the Māori (Orbell, 1985)

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