Gull lover's travels

Ring-billed gull, Corolla, North Carolina.

Gulls have always interested me, perhaps because despite there being over fifty different species of them around the world, only one is familiar to me as a Queensland resident.

It is the silver gull (Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae) alone that chooses to call our sunny state its home, meaning that we can refer to it simply as ‘the seagull’ and not get it mixed up with other species.

It has adapted well to human settlement, and in the capital cities of our southern states, it is even an urban bird; I remember being surprised when I lived in Sydney that the gulls could be found right through the city, waddling up and down train station platforms and city footpaths the way we are used to seeing ibis do in Brisbane. 

While not quite as abundant here, the silver gull is still very common in South-east Queensland. One thing I’ve noticed about our local birds is that a lot of them are quite young, being immatures that have smudgy bills and dark eyes. Silver gulls mostly breed on small rocky islands, of which there are plenty down south but little of up here, so many of our local birds are young wanderers learning the ropes of life. One banding study documented these gulls travelling almost 1300 kilometres once they left the nest, which means that the birds stealing your chips at Redcliffe may have started life on a desolate island in New South Wales or Victoria.

When you do spot an adult silver gull, note its immaculate white and pale grey plumage, and blood-red bill and eye-ring. It’s actually quite a pretty bird, its beauty diminished by over-familiarity perhaps.

Silver gull, Margate, Queensland.

Gulls are most successful in temperate climates where highly-productive cold water ecosystems allow them to be generalists with a varied diet. This means that when us tropical Queenslanders travel around the world to Northern Hemisphere tourist destinations, one of the first ‘wildlife moments’ we may have there are with an unusual gull or two.

Many of my friends and family who travel to England, including those venturing no further than the London city centre, will remark on the enormous herring gulls (Larus argentatus) that live there. It turns out that as far as gulls go, our local silver friend is just a little one!

When I visited the United States of America earlier this year, getting to know the local gulls was high on my list of priorities. Even though most of my stay occurred by the Atlantic out on the east coast, a full day’s layover in Los Angeles allowed me to see the gulls of the North Pacific also.

The first species I saw was the western gull (L. occidentalis), a large species like the afore-mentioned herring gull.

Western gull, Marina Del Rey, California.

As you can see from the photo above, its bill is a more robust weapon than the one owned by our local silver gull, which almost seems dainty in comparison!

It was the most common gull along LA’s beaches, and its yelping calls filled the air the way they do in the beach and harbour scenes of so many Hollywood films. 

Also present on the beaches were a few Heermann’s gulls (L. heermanni). 

Heermann's gull, Playa Del Rey, California.

These were very unusual gulls because they are mostly dark in plumage, even as adults.

Almost the entire population of this species nests on one island in the Gulf of California, so while they are common for the time being, they are vulnerable to catastrophes like disease and climate change.

Over on the east coast of the USA, I got to know the Atlantic coast by way of the Outer Banks, a chain of sandy barrier islands off North Carolina. 

The most common gull there was the laughing gull (Leucophaeus atricilla), a black-headed species that, truth be told, has a noisy cackle rather than a laugh.

I also saw the gull considered to be the most common and widespread one in North America, the ring-billed gull (L. delawarensis). 

My favourite Atlantic gull sighting though was of a great black-backed gull (L. marinus) on the beautiful shoreline of Cape Hatteras. 

Great black-backed gull, Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.

It is the largest gull species in the world, and it is not merely a scavenger or gleaner of small beach creatures, but a formidable apex predator in its own right, with a diet that includes other birds and even rats!

It reminded me of a hefty and uncommon gull we have here in Australia around the southern coastline, called the Pacific gull (L. pacifica). It and a related species called the kelp gull (L. dominicensis) are very rare strays in Queensland, and I’ve never had the fortune of seeing either of them.  I suppose then that if I want more gull adventures in the near future, I don’t need to cross oceans to do so—just a state border or two!

Laughing gull, Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.