GULLS

All gulls are sturdy looking with long pointed wings and an almost square tail. Their feet are webbed and their bills are hooked. When landing in the water to grab food, they alight almost gently rather than dive. Generally their flight is strong with deliberate wing-beats but some gulls also soar.

Opportunists, gulls are mostly scavengers and are at home around human gatherings
where they can expect to seize the garbage and refuse left behind by people.

Most adult gulls are some combination of white, grey and black. The markings of gulls are the same in the female and male. Immature gulls have different markings and some gulls may not have their adult plumage for several years. Gulls nest in colonies and generally produce 2 to 5 eggs each year.

Docks, beaches and picnic areas are crowded with gulls
but any garbage dump is totally shrouded with gulls.

Beach maintenance people have to regularly contend with the debris that gulls have pulled out of the trash cans and the broken shells covering any paved surface, which are the remnants of the mollusks that gulls have dropped to smash open. Regrettably, the photo to the right is Gilgo Beach Parking Lot the day after Labor Day, 2006.

Some Water People Should Be Ashamed!
Please, Preserve and Protect our Beaches.

The Herring Gull, Larus argentatus, is the most common species found in the United States. Early European colonists on our shores found the herring and great black backed gulls so common and people friendly that they could be easily killed for food.

The herring gull, Larus argentatus, is the most common species found in the United States.
These gulls average 20 inches in length and have a 55 inch wing span.
The females are slightly larger than the males.
They have white heads, tails and undersides.
Their wings backs are light grey, tipped with black with white spots.

They have pinkish legs and their bills are yellow with a little red dot on either side.
The young “first winter” herring gulls are a mottled brown with darker brown at the wing tips and tail.
The “second winter” herring gull shows more white on its head and undersides but its wing tips and tail are still dark.
Herring gulls show their adult plumage by their third winter. 

Herring gulls reach their sexual maturity between 3 and 7 years of age.
Herring gulls are colonial but each male claims his own territory in the colony in the spring.
This may entail some squabbling with his neighbors, but it will eventually be sorted out.
Then he begins to court a mate.  He will mate for life and will only have to find another mate if the old one has died.
When the territory and personnel situation is finalized, the pairs settle down to building round nests of grass, seaweed and other plant matter. 

The female lays 2 or 3 eggs that are brownish olive in color with black markings.
Both parents take turns sitting on the eggs and the incubation period is about a month.
After hatching the chicks are fed, at first, regurgitated food by both parents.
A herring gull chick knows to peck on the red spot on the parent’s bill which stimulates it to release the food.
When the chick gets older the parents drop pieces of food by the nest for it.
The chick will stay close to the nest until it fledges in 4 to 6 weeks.
Until the chicks are fledged, the parents defend their young by flying at predators to scare them away and shrieking alarms to signal the chicks to return to the nest.
Herring gulls raise only one brood of young per year.

Herring gulls spend their winters away from the colony, with the younger birds traveling farther south than the breeding adults.
The oldest known herring gull in captivity was 44 years old. 

The herring gull’s preferred diet is fish, crustaceans and shellfish but it will also take eggs and small birds, even of its own kind.
It hunts on the shore and docks for dead marine animals and in dumps and waste bins for edible matter of all sorts.

GREAT BLACK-BACKED GULL

The largest gull common to our area is the great black-backed, Larus marinus. 

Averaging 30 inches long with an impressive wingspan of 65 inches it asserts its dominance over the herring gulls
in its common nesting areas and throughout the year. 

As its name implies it has a black back and wing tops.
The remaining plumage is white. 
Like the herring gull its bill is yellow and its legs are pink. 
The immature great black-backed is mottled brown with a paler head and breast and showing black on the tip of its tail and on its bill.

Living amidst herring gulls and close to human habitation it is shyer and is not as likely to approach to people to grab food.

The great black-backed gull preys on almost anything smaller than itself,
including ducks, other gulls’ chicks and eggs, as well as, fish, crustaceans and shellfish.

Its range is almost exclusively in the eastern US and Canada along coastal beaches, bay and estuaries.
This gull is often seen soaring on the air currents along the shoreline,
but when the updrafts die down it must pump laboriously to keep aloft.

Great black-backed gulls breed from Labrador to South Carolina and, like herring gulls, in colonies. 

They create a nest on the ground and line it with grasses and plants for the 3 olive colored eggs
with brown blotches that the female lays in the spring.

The eggs hatch in about 4 weeks, and it will be 8 weeks before the great black-backed chick can take wing.
It will take a full 4 years before the immature great black-backed gulls acquire their adult plumage.\

LAUGHING GULL

The laughing gull, Larus atricilla, is the smallest of the three gull species that are common to Long Island.

The adult is about 15 inches long and has a wing span of 41 inches.
This slender gull has a black head with a white eye ring, and a back and wings of dark grey.
Its wings have a trailing white border and are tipped with black.
Its undersides and tail are white. 

In the winter its black head disappears, replaced by a white head with a light grey cap.
Its bill and feet also vary with the season.
The breeding season bill and feet are dark red; the winter versions are a slate color.

Like the great black-backed, the laughing gull seldom strays far from the coast.
It will vie with other gulls for scraps of food but it will also hit the water for small fish.
It will dip for its catch but, like other gulls, it will not dive to total immersion.
Laughing gulls will also feed on insects and worms which have been brought to the surface by heavy rains.

While terns and laughing gulls may nest in nearby colonies,
these gulls are not brazen enough to steal eggs or chicks from its smaller neighbors. 

The laughing gull chooses sandy bay islands or reedy marshes for its nesting site.
In the northern areas, this gull’s nests are usually made of beach grasses and sticks built up several inches above the sand.
Sometimes there is even a roof of sorts and tunnels going out in either direction.
The female lays 2 to 4 olive-buff colored eggs with brown spots.
The parents take turns sitting on the nest, but it is not uncommon in warm weather for the nest to go unattended for long intervals.

There are many species of gulls worldwide.
According to the Environmental Study of the Barrier and Bay Island Communities,
finalized in 1993 for the Town of Babylon, the gull species that “utilize the study area” are
the herring gull, the great black-backed gull, and the laughing gull.

PLEASE!
Preserve and Protect our Beaches.

Thanks to Sallie Phillips, 1 / 2002

@ 2006 Save the Beaches Fund, Inc.

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