Ring-billed Gull, Larus delawarensis
Bill Rowe
It may come as a surprise to hear just “gull” (the correct term), not “seagull” (a colloquial term), and to learn that gulls are common even in the Midwest, far from the sea. They sometimes outnumber all but the most abundant ducks and geese on our large lakes and rivers—and the Ring-billed Gull is our prototype and standard of comparison for other species. It tends to occur in flocks, congregating wherever it can find food most easily, e.g., fishing in the spillways below dams and scavenging at garbage dumps. Like many other birds, gulls also spend a fair amount of their time taking it easy: they stand around together on sandbars and ice floes, they rest in packs on the water, or they circle on warm air currents up in the sky, perhaps picking off some high-flying insects. Ring-billed Gulls are strictly North American, nesting across Canada and the northern States and wintering down into Mexico—but they are also wanderers, and, just as we search through our gull flocks for the various rare species that may occasionally turn up here, birders in Europe search through their flocks for the occasional rare Ring-billed Gull.
IDENTIFICATION: The Ring-bill is about the size of a crow, which is medium for a gull. The adult wears a trim, handsome outfit: smooth gray back and wings with black wingtips, white head and underparts (with some streaking in the winter), yellow legs, and a yellow bill encircled by a black ring. The adult Herring Gull is similar but substantially larger, with pink legs and a heftier yellow bill decorated with a red spot. Young Ring-bills in their first winter have brown mottling on the wings, a black band at the tip of the tail, pinkish legs, and a bill that is pink-based with a black tip. They transition into adult plumage over two more years. See if you can spot three young birds in the photo above.
ST. LOUIS STATUS: Nests as close as Lake Michigan, and stragglers may be around St. Louis at any point in the summer, especially on the Mississippi. The southward influx begins in August and builds gradually to a population in the hundreds or sometimes even thousands at favored locations, like Riverlands. Under very severe wintry conditions, the Ring-bills may desert us and head farther south, leaving us with flocks of Herring Gulls; but that is unusual, and most of the time the Ring-bill is our commonest gull.
Learn more and listen to the calls of Ring-billed Gulls here.
