Bird name:

Sabine's Gull

Xema sabini

Order

CHARADRIIFORMES

Family

Gulls, Terns, Skimmers (Laridae)

Code 4

SAGU

Code 6

XEMSAB

ITIS

176866

Breeding Location:

Tundra

Breeding Type:

Monogamous, Small colonies

Breeding Population:

Egg Color:

Olive buff with olive brown spots

Number of Eggs:

1 - 3

Incubation Days:

23 - 26

Egg Incubator:

Both sexes

Nest Material:

Lined with grasses.

Migration:

Migratory

RECOMMENDED PRODUCTS

General

Sabine's Gull: Small gull with gray back and white nape, rump, and underparts. Hood is solid black and eye-ring is dark red. Bill is black with yellow tip; legs and feet are black. Upperwings are gray with black primaries and white secondaries. Tail is slightly forked when folded. Sexes are similar. Winter adult has mostly white head with dark gray nape patch. Juvenile resembles winter adult but has brown nape, back and upperwings, black terminal tail band, dark bill, black bill, and yellow legs and feet. 1st winter begins to show gray on back and wings; 1st summer resembles winter adult but has gray nape.

Range and Habitat

Sabine's Gull: Breeds on coastal wet tundra in the arctic, including northern and western Alaska, arctic Canada, northern Greenland, Spitzbergen, and across northern Siberia. Outside breeding season, it is essentially pelagic, found in the eastern Pacific between southern Baja California and central Chile; concentrates in the tropics in the Atlantic.

Breeding and Nesting

Sabine's Gull: One to three olive buff eggs with olive brown spots are laid in a grass-lined ground scrape. Incubation ranges from 23 to 26 days and is carried out by both parents.

Foraging and Feeding

Sabine's Gull: Diet includes fish and marine invertebrates. Forages like wading birds, picking prey items from edges of pools, swimming in circles to stir up prey like phalaropes, or running over mud flats to scoop up stranded fish.

Vocalization

Sabine's Gull: High-pitched, chattering "vihihihi" or "hrier-hrier", also a short, sharp "tsett."

Similar Species

Sabine's Gull: Bonaparte's Gull has black bill, black hood, orange legs and feet, and a squared tail.

Percevia^® Registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

The Percevia field guides, database and search protocol patent pending.

The best bird guide and bird watching search engine to identify birds!

Bird Call Credits: The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Martyn Stewart, http://www.naturesound.org, Redmond, Washington USA. The reuse or copying of bird calls in this database is strictly forbidden.

Underparts

Belly, undertail coverts, chest, flanks, and foreneck.

Nape

Also called the hindneck or collar, it is the back of the neck where the head joins the body.

Primaries

The primaries are the flight feathers specialized for flight. They are attached to the "hand" equivalent part of the wing.

Rump

The area between the uppertail coverts and the back of the bird.

Secondaries

Flight feathers that are attached to the wing in the area similar to the human forearm and between the body and the primaries.

Pelagic

The pelagic is a type of bird whose habitat is on the open ocean rather than in a coastal region or on inland bodies of water (lakes, rivers). An example of a pelagic bird is the blacklegged kittiwake.

4 and 6 letter alpha codes

The four letter common name alpha code is is derived from the first two letters of the common first name and the first two letters of common last name. The six letter species name alpha code is derived from the first three letters of the scientific name (genus) and the first three letters of the scientific name (species). See (1) below for the rules used to create the codes..

Four-letter (for English common names) and six-letter (for scientific names) species alpha codes were developed by Pyle and DeSante (2003, North American Bird-Bander 28:64-79) to reflect A.O.U. taxonomy and nomenclature (A.O.U. 1998) as modified by Supplements 42 (Auk 117:847-858, 2000) and 43 (Auk 119:897-906, 2002). The list has been updated by Pyle and DeSante to reflect changes reported by the A.O.U from 2003 through 2006.

Field Guide to Birds of North America