Like the Guadiana River, there is a question that resurfaces intermittently among the population of Madrid every year—and which is the subject of this headline— : why has Madrid become overrun with seagulls? Although this is a circumstance that tends to attract attention as we associate them with seascapes, the answer has nothing to do with any unusual phenomenon: seagulls have been choosing the capital as their winter destination during their migratory journey for decades.
This was explained in 2017 by SEO Birdlife: “In the last 20 years, they have gone from being infrequent visitors to comfortably exceeding 100,000 individuals in Madrid during the winter months.”
This presence has become particularly evident in areas such as the Ambroz lagoons —the largest wetland in Madrid, located in the San Blas-Canillejas district—or the new Valdecarros development, as some users on X (formerly Twitter) have made clear in their posts.
Among the most common species of seagulls seen in Madrid are the lesser black-backed gull and the black-headed gull, which come from central and northern Europe. However, other less common species are also arriving, such as the yellow-legged gull, the herring gull, the Mediterranean gull, and the grey gull.
In which areas of Madrid can seagulls be seen?
If, like Duncan Dhu, we ask ourselves “And a hundred seagulls, where will they go? Where will they go?”, the answer is that they usually spread out across various locations in the capital: they can be seen in wetlands such as the aforementioned lagoons, the urban stretch of the Manzanares River, Madrid Río, the Retiro pond, and the reservoirs of the Community of Madrid.
Other stops they often choose are, for example, Mercamadrid (to feed) and the large landfills in the region, such as Dehesas de Valdemingómez, Colmenar Viejo, and Pinto.