Overview

Glaucous Gull: This large white gull has a pale gray back and yellow eyes. The bill is yellow with a red spot on the lower mandible. The wings are white-edged and white tipped; the legs and feet are pink. It is an active predator of seabird nesting colonies. Diet includes fish, insects and birds. It has slow steady wing beats and soars on thermals and updrafts. The sexes are similar.

Glaucous Gull: Breeds in Alaska and along coastal regions of northern Canada. Spends winters along the coast south to California (rarely) and North Carolina; rarely found in the Great Lakes and the Gulf coast. Preferred habitats include shores of lakes, rivers, and coast, as well as refuse dumps and sewage outflows.

Voice Text

Generally silent

• First- and second-year Glaucous Gulls appear to move farther southward than adults, and most individuals seen in the southern portion of the winter range are immatures.
• It is an active predator at seabird nesting colonies. It will walk into colonies and take eggs and chicks left unprotected, and will fly above a foraging arctic fox or person disturbing the colony and take eggs and chicks that are exposed during the disturbance.
• A group of gulls has many collective nouns, including a "flotilla", "gullery", "screech", "scavenging", and "squabble" of gulls.

• Glaucous-winged Gull
• Iceland Gull

Gulls, Terns, Skimmers (Laridae)

ORDER

The nineteen families in the taxonomic order CHARADRIIFORMES (pronounced kah-RAH-dree-ih-FOR-meez) include waterbirds such as auks, sandpipers, gulls, and terns.

FAMILY TAXONOMY

Of worldwide distribution (including the polar regions), the family Laridae (pronounced LAR-uh-dee) encompasses one hundred and two species of gulls, terns, and skimmers in twenty-three genera.

NORTH AMERICA

In North America there are fifty-eight species of Laridae (also known as Larids) in twenty-two genera. Members of this bird family include the graceful, aerodynamic terns, hefty gulls, and the clown-like Black Skimmer.

KNOWN FOR

Larids are known for their affinity for and adaptations to aquatic habitats, the gulls being especially well known for being highly effective scavengers of beaches. Species such as Ring-billed Gulls are also known for having become adapted to habitats made by people that provide similar foraging opportunities such as parking lots and landfills.

PHYSICAL

Larids are web-footed, long-winged birds that range in size from the small and slender, long-tailed terns to the large and hefty short-tailed gulls. In synch with their slender aerodynamic appearance, terns have dagger-like sharp bills, the gulls shorter, stronger bills with a slightly hooked tip to match their tough demeanor, and the Black Skimmer a unique bill with the lower half longer that the upper half.

COLORATION

Adult gulls and terns are for the most part pale-colored birds plumaged in gray, white, and black with dark plumages predominating in the Black Tern and noddy species. Other colors are limited to orange and yellow (in the bills and feet) and pink hues in the plumage of the Ross's Gull and Roseate Tern. Immature gulls of most species cycle through years of a seemingly bewildering number of gray, brown, and black streaked plumages.

GEOGRAPHIC HABITAT

Larids are found near fresh and salt water throughout North America but are most common near large bodies of water. Even marsh nesters such as the Franklin's Gull and Black Tern spend the winter in coastal areas.

MIGRATION

Gulls, terns, and the Black Skimmer are all migratory with the larger gulls migrating short distances to open water and the Sabine's Gull, terns, and Black Skimmer undertaking incredible journeys to the seas and rivers of the southern hemisphere.

HABITS

Larids are very social, highly vocal birds that mostly nest in colonies. Terns dive for fish; gulls pick food off the surface of the water and scavenge beaches for carrion and small animals, The Black Skimmer "skims" the surface of coastal waters, snapping its bill shut when it feels a fish touch its long, lower mandible.

CONSERVATION

While many Larid species have benefited from the presence of people, two tern and one gull species have become endangered. Least and Roseate Terns are threatened by destruction and disturbance of their nest sites on sand bars and beaches while the sharp decline of the Ivory Gull could be related to pollution and global warming.

INTERESTING FACTS

The Arctic Tern migrates more that twenty thousand miles each year on a round trip journey between the Arctic and Antarctic. Populations that breed in the northeast actually do a circle of the Atlantic by flying to northern Europe, heading south along the African coast to Antarctica and then following the American coastlines north.

Author

Artist

Yury Lisyak