Where's my dinner?

The bridge over the Foveran Burn is a favourite spot for children to feed the local ducks. The black headed gulls Chroicocephalus ridibundus hang around in the hope of getting a share of the spoils.


Chroicocephalus comes from the Greek word choria meaning colour and cephalus which means head. Thus  Chroicocephalus means coloured-head,  while ridibundus comes from the Latin ridere which means laugh. So essentially the scientific name means laughing coloured-head, or coloured-head laugher.