Species: Chroicocephalus ridibundus
Black-headed Gull
Species
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Encyclopedia of Puget Sound
Classification
Kingdom
Animalia
Phylum
Craniata
Class
Aves
Order
Charadriiformes
Family
Laridae
Genus
Chroicocephalus
NatureServe
Classification
Other Global Common Names
Gaviota Encapuchada - mouette rieuse
Informal Taxonomy
Animals, Vertebrates - Birds - Other Birds
Formal Taxonomy
Animalia - Craniata - Aves - Charadriiformes - Laridae - Chroicocephalus - (AOU, 1995).
Ecology and Life History
Migration
false - false - true - Some may spend summer in winter range along east coast (Terres 1980). Often returns to same wintering locale in successive years (Nikula 19930.
Non-migrant
false
Locally Migrant
false
Food Comments
Highly opportunistic. Hawks for insects, searches muddy places for worms, plunges and dips into water for food, eats weed seeds and waste grain in fields, grasslands, and marshes, scavenges in harbors or mudflats where sewage discharged (Terres 1980).
Reproduction Comments
Lays clutch of 3 eggs. Incubation reportedly 20-24 or 23-26 days. Young first fly at about 35-40 days. One banded bird lived over 32 years. Usually nests in large colonies in Eurasian range.
Ecology Comments
In North America, often associates with flocks of migrant and wintering Bonaparte's gulls or other gulls (Nikula 1993).
Length
41
Weight
284
Conservation Status
NatureServe Global Status Rank
G5
Global Status Last Reviewed
1996-11-27
Global Status Last Changed
1996-11-27
Other Status
LC - Least concern
Distribution
Conservation Status Map
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Global Range
BREEDING: Iceland, Faroe Islands, Eurasia, southeastern Canada, northeastern U.S. European population expanded northward since the mid-1800s, probably due to amelioration of climate, increase in food supply resulting from human activities, and reduced persecution (Nikula 1993). Increasing numbers occurred in the 1900s in southeastern Canada and the northeastern U.S., where nesting has occurred in several areas (Labrador to Maine and Massachusetts) beginning in the 1970s; U.S. nestings have been unsuccessful and population expansion does not seem to be on-going (Nikula 1993). See also Brown and Nettleship (1984). NON-BREEDING: in North America along Atlantic coast from Labrador, Newfoundland, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia south to New York (Long Island), rarely farther south and west, and in Old World. In North America, the largest numbers occur in the St. John's/Conception Bay area, Newfoundland, where a peak of a couple hundred occurs in November, and in Nova Scotia around the Sydney/Glace Bay area and around Halifax (Nikula 1993). Casual in Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and along Pacific coast of North America. Regular in spring in Aleutian and Pribilof Islands.