The Thing About Gulls...

Question 1

What two groups of birds are gulls most closely related to?

Answer 1

Terns and skimmers

Gulls are then more distantly related to shorebirds and alcids, the family that includes murres, guillemots, auklets, puffins, and murrelets.

Question 2

Using approximate words, describe the distribution of the world’s gull population.

Answer 2

Gulls are found from pole-to-pole, where they successfully inhabit inland, coastal, and pelagic habitats, as well as both wild and heavily urbanized environments.

Question 3

Describe a typical gull diet.

Answer 3

Gulls are carnivorous and will eat anything they can catch, kill, scavenge, or pilfer from other birds or animals (including humans).

Gulls even engage in a feeding behaviour called kleptoparasitism—usually more commonly observed in jaegars—which involves harrassing other birds until they regurgitate their food, which the gull then eats.

Question 4

Why is it considered erroneous to refer to gulls as “seagulls”?

Answer 4

If you look at the global distribution of all the species of gulls, you’ll see that, on the whole, they inhabit a much greater portion of land than they do sea or ocean!

In fact, gulls were often viewed by boatsmen as the signs that there is land nearby.

Question 5

What are four traits that make gulls such a fascinating group of birds?

Answer 5

1. Long migration routes
2. Complex breeding strategies
3. Extremely long lifespans
4. Complex social structures

1. Sabine’s Gull breeds in the high Arctic and winters along the equator.
2. Boneparte’s Gull nests in trees and not on the ground, as is typical of most gull species.
3. The oldest known gull was a European herring gull that lived to be **49 years old. **
4. Gulls can be solitary and social.

Question 6

What two factors can make gulls tricky to identify?

Answer 6

1. They have a variety of plumages (winter vs breeding; juvenile vs adult; first, second, third, fourth year plumage)
2. They often hybridize: many gull species are early on in the process of “speciation” and so will still interbreed, producing confusing hybrids.

Counting in their favor, many gulls are common and unafraid to come close to humans so we have little excuse not to get to know them well!

Question 7

What four factors will help you deduce the age of a gull?

Answer 7

1. Time of year
2. General color of the bird
3. Wing patterns: primaries, secondaries, and coverts
4. Bill color

Importantly, use a combination of these characteristics, with the wing being the most important.

Question 8

Name the two species of small gulls we get in British Columbia.

Answer 8

Boneparte’s gull
Franklin’s gull

Question 9

Name the two species of intermediate gulls we get in British Columbia.

Answer 9

Short-billed gull
Ring-billed gull

Ring-billed gull are slightly larger than short-billed gull.

Question 10

Name the six species of large, white-headed gulls we get in British Columbia.

Answer 10

1. California gull
2. Thayer’s gull
3. Herring gull
4. Glaucous-winged gull
5. Western gull

From smallest to largest