Ivory Gull

Ivory Gull, adult; above the Arctic Circle; early September

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Ivory Gull, 1st winter (Basic I plumage); above the Arctic Circle; early September

Ivory Gull, 1st summer (Alternate I plumage); above the Arctic Circle; early September

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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

A small white gull of the high Arctic, the Ivory Gull only rarely comes south of the Bering Sea or the Maritime Provinces. In fact, it rarely is found away from pack ice, spending the winter on the ice north of Newfoundland.

Cool Facts

• The Ivory Gull casts up pellets of indigestible matter from its food, such as bones and fur. Pellet-casting is most frequent where lemmings are abundant and are the major prey.
• The adult Ivory Gull attending the nest expels its faeces powerfully by aiming its cloaca outward from cliff nest sites.

• Large nests of the Ivory Gull are eaten by caribou during the winter and early spring.

Description

• Size: 40-43 cm (16-17 in)
• Wingspan: 108-120 cm (43-47 in)
• Weight: 448-687 g (15.81-24.25 ounces)

• Medium-sized gull.
• Pure white.
• Black eyes.
• Black legs and feet.
• Small bill bluish at base, turning grayish green, with yellow or red tip.

• Mouth lining lilac.

Sex Differences

Sexes look alike.

Immature

First Winter (Basic I) Plumage: Mostly white, with dark blackish brown face. Back covered in blackish brown spots. Tail tip and tips of flight feathers black. Bill all dark.
First Summer (Alternate II) Plumage: Mostly white, with fewer dark spots, less blackish on face.

Similar Species

• No other gull is normally completely white. Albino gulls should not have black legs or yellow bill.

Sound

Call a harsh, discordant, and tern-like "keeuur."

Range

Range Map

© 2004 Cornell Lab of Ornithology

About the map

Summer Range

Breeds in Arctic Canada. Also in Greenland and Russia.

Winter Range

Winters along pack ice in Bering Sea and northward of Newfoundland. Also on ice along northern Eurasia.

Habitat

Breeds on rocky islands and cliffs near pack ice. Winters on pack and drift ice.

Food

Fish, marine invertebrates, some small mammals, carrion. Also faeces and placentas of seals.

Behavior

Foraging

Hovers, dips, and plunges into water to get food. Attracted by red splashes on snow. Follows whales. Scavenges carrion from polar bear kills.

Reproduction

Nest Type

Mound of mosses, dry grass, splinters of driftwood, feathers, down, stalks, algae or seaweeds, lichen, or dried mud. Placed on cliff ledges, dry stony ridges within a few meters of the ice cap, gently-sloping boulder-strewn mounds, or gravel banks in small streams.

Egg Description

Dark to pale brown with variable amount of dark spotting and blotching.

Clutch Size

Condition at Hatching

Alert and mobile, covered with white down.

Conservation Status

Little information available because of remote breeding and wintering areas.

Other Names

Goéland sénateur, Mouette blanche (French)
Gaviota marfil (Spanish)

Sources used to construct this page:

Haney, J. C., and S. D. MacDonald. 1995. Ivory Gull (Pagophila eburnea). In The Birds of North America, No. 175 (A. Poole and F. Gill, eds.). The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, and The American Ornithologists? Union, Washington, D.C.