Birds and Birding's Guide to:

Watching THE PLOVER-LIKE BIRDS

THE GULLS AND THEIR ALLIES

Typical Gulls

 In the typical Gulls (Lams) the hind toe is perfectly developed though small, and the tail is even, but in”size, color, and all other characters they are extremely variable,”especially when in immature plumage, it being in fact almost impossible to separate the young by obvious distinctive characters. Of the forty-five forms, over twenty occur regularly or accidentally in North America, the entire number falling into two groups, in the first of which the head of the adult is white in summer, while in the second the head is mainly black at this season.

Without attempting to enumerate all, as examples of the white-headed group mention may be made of the large Glaucous Gull (L. glaucus) of the Arctic seas and the coasts of the North Atlantic, which reaches a length of twenty-six to thirty-two inches, its place in Bering Sea and adjacent waters being taken by the Point Barrow Gull (L. barrovianus), which is from twenty-five to twenty-eight inches long. Hardly to be distinguished from the last two in plumage, but smaller and with a comparatively longer wing is the Iceland Gull (L. leucopterus) of the North Atlantic, and with the same character of plumage, but with the primaries white at the tips and with gray subterminal spaces, are two North Pacific species, Kumlien's Gull (L. kumlieni) and Nelson's Gull (L. nelsoni), which differ mainly in the length of the wing and bill. Mention must be made of the Herring Gulls, the typical form of which (L. argentatus) occurs in northern Europe and in eastern North America, and may be known by its yellow bill, flesh-colored legs and feet, and black outer primaries.

It is one of the most abundant species along the English coasts throughout the year, where it follows shoals of herrings or feeds upon garbage and marine animals as well as carrion. It nests in a variety of places, such as flat islands and precipitous rocky shores, making usually a bulky nest of seaweeds and other plants, and lined with dry grass.

On the American coasts it is the commonest and most abundant Gull in winter in the Eastern and Southern States, where it frequents the rivers and harbors to feed, unmindful of the presence of man, upon the scraps and garbage so abundantly floating there. It breeds from Maine northward, Mr. Ken-nicott having found its nests in great numbers on an island in the Great Slave Lake, where they were placed on the ground, usually under bushes and quite carefully constructed of sticks, leaves, and feathers.

On the islands in the Bay of Fundy, Dr. Brewer found the Herring Gulls nesting on the ground, and also on high inaccessible cliffs as well as in very tall spruce trees, the latter habit acquired, it was told him, after repeated depredations by man. With the plumage much as in the Herring Gull, but distinguished by its smaller size and a black band near the tip of the bill, is the Ring-billed Gull (L. delawarensis), which inhabits the whole of North America, but is more abundant in the interior, nesting from Newfoundland and Minnesota northward.

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