Species: Larus californicus
California Gull
Species
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New, smaller acoustic tags will allow scientists to track steelhead migrations in Puget Sound in ways that were once impossible. Will they provide answers to the mysterious decline of these now-threatened fish?
Classification
Kingdom
Animalia
Phylum
Craniata
Class
Aves
Order
Charadriiformes
Family
Laridae
Genus
Larus
NatureServe
Classification
Other Global Common Names
Gaviota Californiana - goéland de Californie
Informal Taxonomy
Animals, Vertebrates - Birds - Other Birds
Formal Taxonomy
Animalia - Craniata - Aves - Charadriiformes - Laridae - Larus - (AOU 1998).
Ecology and Life History
Migration
false - false - true
Non-migrant
false
Locally Migrant
false
Food Comments
In inland areas, feeds on insects (crickets, grasshoppers, cutworms) and mice. At Mono Lake, California, recently fledged gulls fed mainly on, and aparently preferred, alkali flies (Elphick and Rubega 1995, Great Basin Nat. 55:363-367). Along the coast, feeds on dead fish and garbage; scavenges behind boats, around harbors and dumps.
Reproduction Comments
Breeding begins late April in south to early June in north. Both sexes incubate 3 eggs for 23-27 days. Semi-precocial young are tended by both parents. In southern California, fledging was almost complete by the end of July. May form female-female pairs.
Ecology Comments
May gather in large flocks, often in association with Herring and Ring-billed Gulls. Great Horned Owl may cause significant mortality in breeding colony (California, Jehl and Mahoney 1987). Home range: breeding pairs in Montana foraged an average of 17.4 kilometers (maximum 61 kilometers) from colony (Baird 1976). At another colony, maximum foraging distance was 32 kilometers (Rothweiler 1960).
Length
53
Weight
609
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
<img src="http://www.natureserve.org/explorer/servlet/GetMapGif?CA.AB=S4&CA.BC=S3&CA.MB=S4&CA.NT=S4&CA.ON=__&CA.SK=S5&US.AK=__&US.AZ=__&US.CA=S2&US.CO=S4&US.ID=S2&US.MT=S5&US.NN=__&US.NE=__&US.NV=S5&US.NM=__&US.NC=__&US.ND=SNR&US.OR=S5&US.SD=S2&US.TX=__&US.UT=S5&US.WA=S4&US.WY=S2" alt="Conservation Status Map" style="width: 475px; height: auto;" />
Global Range
BREEDS: interior North America from southern Mackenzie, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba south to east-central North Dakota, central Montana, northwestern Wyoming, eastern Idaho, northwestern Utah, northwestern Nevada, eastern California, southeasternuthern Washington. The largest nesting concentration (about 130,000-150,000 in 1988-1991) occurs around the Great Salt Lake, Utah (Paton et al. 1992). WINTERS: southern Washington, eastern Idaho, south along Pacific coast to southern Baja California northwestern Mexico; rare in Hawaii.