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Sabine's Gull

Sabine's Gull

Xema sabini

Identify the Sabine's Gull by sound or photo and log your sightings with Birdpass.

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Sabine's Gull is a small, elegant Arctic gull and the only member of its genus. It has a striking three-coloured wing pattern, a dark grey hood in breeding plumage, a black bill with a yellow tip and a slightly forked tail. It breeds in colonies on coastal tundra and spends the rest of the year far out at sea, migrating to cold upwelling waters off South America and south-western Africa.

Did you know?

  • It makes one of the longest migrations of any gull, about 32,000–39,000 km a year.
  • Adults reverse the usual gull moult timing.

Voice

Flight call

About the species

Identification

A smallish gull with a tern-like, slightly forked tail in all plumages. In flight it shows a contrasting three-coloured wing pattern: grey forewing, black outer primaries and a white triangle on the rear of the wing. Breeding adults have a dark grey hood and a black bill with a yellow tip; in winter the head is white with a dark nape. Young birds are grey-brown and scaly above with the same three-coloured wing pattern.

Family

Laridae

Size

Medium (thrush)

Colours

grey, white, black, yellow

About the habitat

Breeds on Arctic coastal tundra near wetlands, river deltas and marshes; winters over open ocean, especially cold upwelling zones.

Diet

On the breeding grounds insects and larvae, spiders, small molluscs, small fish and crustaceans, and eggs and chicks of other birds; at sea small prey picked from the surface.

Behaviour

A colonial breeder that nests on the ground, often among Arctic Terns, laying two or three eggs in a grass-lined scrape. Outside the breeding season it is fully pelagic and makes long ocean migrations. It flies buoyantly like a tern and gives a grating, tern-like call. Adults moult mainly in spring rather than autumn.

Sources

Photo: Alaska Region U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service from Anchorage, United States, Public domain https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sabine's gull (53706725122).jpg

Sound: Sonothèque ADVL, XC919304, CC0 1.0 https://xeno-canto.org/919304

Text: Wikipedia (English), CC BY-SA 4.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabine%27s_gull

See also