Herring Gull

Larus argentatus

Order CHARADRIIFORMES - Family LARIDAE - Subfamily Larinae

Menu

1. Cool Facts
2. Description
3. Similar Species
4. Sound
5. Range
6. Habitat
7. Food
8. Behavior
9. Reproduction
10. Conservation Status
11. Other Names

The Herring Gull is the quintessential basic "seagull," with no distinctive characters that immediately set it apart from other gull species. The characteristic gull of the North Atlantic, it can be found across much of North America.

Cool Facts

• The Herring Gull is part of a complex of large, white-headed gulls that breed across the northern hemisphere. Some people consider all of the forms as one species, while others would recognize 10 or more species. The Lesser Black-backed and Yellow-legged gulls currently are recognized as different species, but birds intermediate between them and the Herring Gull occur. Only one form, the American Herring Gull, is common in North America, but several others, such as the Vega Gull and the European Herring Gull, may be rare visitors.

• The Herring Gull has extended its breeding range southward along the Atlantic Coast, and may be displacing the more southern Laughing Gull from some areas. But at the northern end of its range the Herring Gull is itself being displaced by increasing numbers of the Great Black-backed Gull.

• Young Herring Gulls appear more migratory than adults. In some areas, such as the Great Lakes, most adults remain near their breeding grounds, but the nonbreeders move father south in the fall.

• The Herring Gull regularly drinks fresh water when it is available. If none is around, the gull will drink seawater. Special glands located over its eyes allow it to excrete the salt. The salty excretion can be seen dripping out of the gull's nostrils and off the end of its bill.

Description

• Size: 56-66 cm (22-26 in)
• Wingspan: 137-146 cm (54-57 in)
• Weight: 800-1250 g (28.24-44.13 ounces)

• Medium to large gull.
• Head and underparts white.
• Back light gray.
• Wingtips black with white spots.
• Bill yellow with red spot near tip of lower mandible.

Breeding (Alternate) Plumage: Head, neck, and underparts pure white. Back and wings light gray. Legs dull pink. Eyes golden. Yellow or orange ring of skin around eyes. Bill yellow with red spot. Underside of wingtip black to silver.
Nonbreeding (Basic) Plumage: Head and sides of breast variably streaked with dusky, sometimes forming a dirty hood.

Sex Differences

Sexes alike in plumage, male larger than females.

Immature

Juvenal plumage: Dark brown head and body, face and nape paler. Blackish around eye. Back and wings gray-brown with light edgings to feathers. Tail with large black band, whitish and barred at base. Flight feathers on wing blackish. Inner primaries pale with dark tips, forming pale window in spread wings. Bill black with pale base. Legs dark gray with pink overtones. Eyes dark brown.
First Winter (Basic I): Like juvenal, but head, throat, and breast whiter and back feathers with more complex pattern of bars. Bill black with base becoming paler. Eyes dark brown.
First Summer (Alternate I): Head, neck, and especially the throat whiter, but still streaked. Back showing a few light gray feathers. Wing feathers worn and paler. Bill black with pale base. Eyes dark brown.
Second Winter (Basic II): Head whiter, but neck heavily streaked. Back mottled brown and light gray. Underparts and rump mostly white, with variable amount of dark streaking. Wing tips black. Inner wings gray with variable amount of brown barring. Underwing whiter. Tail white at base with variable broad blackish subterminal band. Bill pale flesh at base, then black, with small white tip. Eyes pale straw or brown. Legs pale pinkish.
Second Summer (Alternate II): Head and neck largely white. Back may be entirely light gray with a few brown feathers. Underparts mostly white, with some streaking in throat. Bill yellowish at base, then black with white tip. Eyes pale straw or brown.
Third Winter (Basic III): Extensive dusky streaking on otherwise white head and neck, and especially around eye. Back light gray. Underparts white. Tail largely white with variable dark markings. Outer wing feathers (primaries) black with white tips, with white subterminal spots on some. Inner wing feathers with variable amount of brown markings. Underwing white with gray trailing edge and black tips to outer primaries. Bill yellowish with blackish bar or spots behind nostrils. Eyes yellow or buff.
Third Summer (Alternate III): Head and neck pure white or with only little streaking. Back all gray. Underparts white. Tail white with some dark smudging. Bill yellow with some red on lower mandible. Eyes brighter yellow. Legs brighter pink.

Similar Species

• Ring-billed Gull smaller, with yellow legs in adult and distinct black ring around bill and no red spot. Immature Ring-billed Gull with thinner black band on tail.
• Thayer's Gull very similar, but adult has dark eyes and lacks most of the black under the wingtip.
• California Gull is smaller, has yellowish green legs, and a black spot in front of the red spot on the bill.

Sound

Calls are loud, clear bugling.

»listen to songs of this species

Range

Summer Range

Breeds across Alaska and northern Canada, southward to the Great Lakes and along the Atlantic Coast to North Carolina. Herring Gull or closely related species breed across Eurasia.

Winter Range

Winters from southern Alaska southward to Mexico, and from the Great Lakes and Massachusetts southward into the Caribbean and Central America.

Habitat

• Breeds on islands.
• Forages and winters at sea, along beaches and mudflats, at dumps, and other areas where human-produced food is available.
• Rests in open areas, including parking lots, fields, and airports.

Food

Fish, marine invertebrates, insects, birds, eggs, carrion, garbage.

Behavior

Foraging

Captures prey while walking or swimming, dips food from surface of water. Steals food from other birds. Drops large, hard food items on rock or sand to break them open.

Reproduction

Nest Type

Nest is a scrape in sand or dirt. Lined with vegetation, feathers, plastic, or nothing.

Egg Description

Light olive with dark brown speckles.

Clutch Size

Usually 3 eggs. Range: 1-3.

Condition at Hatching

Chicks semiprecocial at hatching; may leave nest cup at one day old. Covered in cryptically colored down.

Conservation Status

Hunting for the millinery trade nearly extirpated it from parts of range in 1800s. It has come back to historic high population levels in some areas, and is extending its breeding range southward.

Other Names

Goéland argenté (French)
Gaviota plateada, Apipizca (Spanish)

Sources used to construct this page:

Pierotti, R. J., and T. P. Good. 1994. Herring Gull (Larus argentatus). In The Birds of North America, No. 124 (A. Poole, and F. Gill, eds.). The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, PA, and The American Ornithologists' Union, Washington, D.C.