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Introduction to Gulliver and Josefine, our rooftop gulls

24. July 2024

Birdwatching

Gulliver and Josefine are a couple of, assumibly rather old, herring gulls that live on the roodtops in our street.

The ledge of our balcony is one of their favorite hangout spots, along with the chimney of the building across the street. We've been observing and following along with them for quite a while, and they've been enjoying watching us just as much.

Species

European Herring Gull

Adult herring gull looking at the camera from behind a diagonal roof, with a trans flag colored sky in the background

Adult herring gull in breeding plumage, looking at the camera, with a different gull standing out of focus in the foreground.

I had seen the herring gulls in Oslo before, but never paid much attention to them or realized how much personality they actually had until I moved to an apartment where we got a front-row seat to the comings and goings of the neighborhood gulls.

We live close to a small park and not far away from a river, so there are quite a bit of gulls hanging out in our neighborhood, and a lot of them are repeat daily visitors. When they're not hunting or foraging for food, they relax on the chimneys and roofs in the area. And as it turns out, most of them have their own spot, to which they return every single day at sunrise.

How it all started

Two of those gulls are Gulliver and Josefine. They were living on the chimney across the street until October 2023, when Gulliver decided to check out our balcony while I was photographing a crow visitor. He liked what he saw, and has since then traded the neighbor's chimney for the ledge of our balcony, from where he has a view on the street, the sky, and our apartment.

Josefine was a lot more skeptical at first and it took him some convincing, but during early spring she "moved in" with him on our balcony ledge.

I've been following their life quite closely since his first he first stopped by, and they inspired me to start this blog, since I wanted to document their interesting behaviors, intelligence, beautiful dynamics, and rich personalities somewhere.

Portrait of a European Herring Gull in a snow storm. The picture is zoomed in on his face, the background is an out of focus hazy dark purple/gray, and there's snow falling around the gull. He's in adult winter plumage, white body with gray stripes on the head and around the eyes.

Adult herring gull in breeding plumage, looking at the camera, with snow falling around her.

Josefine

Even though Josefine started visiting much later than Gulliver, we do know more about her. She has a color ring around her leg, which lets us register and read observations of her.

She received the ring in January of 2016, as an adult in her 5th calendar year or higher. It's not possible to tell the age of gulls once they've reached adulthood, so "at least 5 years" is as precise as the data gets. This makes her at least 13 years old, but we suspect she and Gulliver are both older than that.

We also know where she's been over the years, and she has a clear preference: she's been consistently observed in our area, with a few exceptions. For example, she and Gulliver breed outside the city center.

Adult herring gull looking straight at the camera, with a stern look on her face. Another gull is standing out of focus in front of her, and the background is a blue-ish out of focus color.

Gulliver

Gulliver has been visiting us the longest, but we have no info about his age or which other places he visits, as he's not ringed. But we do know he spends a significant amount of time on our roof and two additional ones in our street.

He's a quite large and strong gull, good at defending his rooftops, a loving partner to Josefine, and... an eager people-watcher.

We often notice him standing on top of our windows, looking inwards into our apartment while making talking noises to Josefine. When he's on the balcony he follows along with what happens inside, and each morning he greets us with the loudest concert as soon as he notices we're awake.

Portrait of an adult herring gull shouting towards the camera. The background is black and out of focus, whereas the gull is in fous. He's moulting from summer to winter plumage, and looking a bit bald on the head as a result.

Adult herring gull in winter plumage. In the background there's a pink/red to gray gradient (out of focus house), in the foreground there's gold reflection from something, and the gull is outlined by gold late afternoon light.

Their relationship

Gulliver is a very confident and bossy gull (aren't they all though), that rarely tolerates other gulls on his roof. Josefine is the only exception, she's not only tolerated, she's highly encouraged by him to hang out together.

And they really do spend a lot of time with one another. They're typically sitting together, quietly (and occaisionally very loudly) talking to eachother. When Gulliver arrives on the balcony before her, he patiently waits for her, shouting out for her as soon as he notices her in the distance.

While eating they stand guard for eachother, and if we give Gulliver food while Josefine is not around, he calls out for her and leaves a (small) portion for her. Gulliver is definitely a tough one, who has seemed quite successful at protecting his long-term partner so far. The same can be said for Josefine, who fiercly chases away any other gulls showing interest in "their" roofs.

I honestly didn't fully realize that gulls were this social with eachother until I started following these two. They talk to eachother, they arrive together at sunrise and leave together at sunset, gather food for eachother, have their own territories even in the city, have certain other gulls they allow near, and some they passionately chase off.

Next Gulliver & Josefine blogs

I take a lot of pictures of Gulliver & Josefine, and spend a lot of time watching them, so as soon as I decided to create a place to share my photography, I knew I had to dedicate a section to them.

Besides sharing their portraits, I'm also hoping to document their behavior and interactions, and share little updates about what they're up to. We will be moving out of our apartment at some point within the next years as well, so more than anything I want to save some memories of our lovely friends.

All of my Gulliver and Josefine related blog posts and photos can be explored in my Gulliver & Josefine collection.

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