This is an ecological niche they occupy which is largely avoided by both Taimyr and Vega Gulls. And often adults like these are accompanied by immatures of different ages—almost all of which after years of observation similarly fit neatly into an expected pattern of structure and plumage. The adult to the rear has extremely bright yellow legs and a vividly coloured bill, with the red on the gonys unusually bleeding up onto the upper mandible. ... a breeding species as the Herring-Gull. In this region, we also get to see these young Mongolians accompanying adults on the tide-line and also often in freshwater habitats—along rivers and in lakes. 'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+"://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); Editor’s note: Dr. Nial Moores is director of Birds Korea and an authority on gulls. ***and many of the young will have fledged by early June*** Therefore, many adult Taimyr Gulls remain in the Yellow Sea until late April and early May, acquiring their full breeding plumage late before migrating rapidly, perhaps more or less non-stop, up to the northwest. Adults are white with gray back and wings, black wingtips with white spots, and pink legs. Required fields are marked *. The Taimyr, by contrast, still shows streaking on its head, an indication that it has not yet attained full breeding plumage. The Herring Gull (Larus argentatus), is a large gull (up to 26 inches or 66 cm long), and is the most abundant and best known of all gulls along the shores of Asia, western Europe, and North America. These include Relict Gull Ichthyaetus relictus and Saunders’s Gull Chroicocephalus saundersi. I have never noticed windows in Herring Gulls before. It was rare at the turn of the century, a casualty of the millinery trade, which used bird feathers as decorations in women’s hats. Most adults are easy to pick out from Taimyr and Mongolian in mid-winter: sloping-backed and rather weaker looking than Mongolian; pink-legged and with pale yellow bill bases; dirty grey upperparts lacking slate tones; often heavily streaked and mottled on the head and down the breast sides. It is at least in part the huge distance that Taimyr Gulls need to fly over land between their breeding grounds and the rich fishing grounds of the Yellow Sea and south China coast that requires them to be so long-winged; and the brevity of the Arctic summer also determines when juveniles can start to moult into their next plumage and how much of their plumage they then need to moult. The male European herring gull is 60-67 cm (24-226 in) tall and weighs 1,050–1,525 g (2.315–3.362 lb), while the female is 55–62 cm (22–24 in) and weighs 710–1,100 g (1.57–). … And by January, because this plumage is already several months old, young Mongolian Gulls already show a lot of wear, with extensive pale areas across the inner primaries contrasting with darker internal markings, which sometimes suggest black golf clubs. Analyses of these “pellets” and of their feces show that herring gulls, like most other gull species, will eat almost anything—clams, small fish, floating dead animals, small young and adults of other nesting birds, bread, french fries, and unfortunately, plastics. The Pacific gull is the the largest of Tasmania's three gull species measuring 580mm - 650mm. The Cornell Lab will send you updates about birds, birding, and opportunities to help bird conservation. Are the windows more prominent in Taimyr Gull than in Herring Gull? By this I mean, this is why the IOC currently recognises the European Herring Gull, the American Herring Gull, and the Caspian Gull as three separate species, while not recognizing Taimyr Gull at all, and while also treating heuglini as a subspecies of Lesser Black-backed Gull and mongolicus as a subspecies of Vega. All Birds Korea materials depend on the excellent recommendations of Gill and Donsker (2017) and the IOC Checklist—but not in the case of these gulls. Breeds in colonies, sometimes associated with California or Herring gulls. Gulls of Europe, Asia and North America. The American herring gull or Smithsonian gull (Larus smithsonianus or Larus argentatus smithsonianus) is a large gull that breeds in North America, where it is treated by the American Ornithologists' Union as a subspecies of herring gull (L. argentatus).. Eastern Crowned Warbler Singing in Shanghai, Birds Recorded at Shanghai’s Century Park, English-Chinese Taxonomic Index to the Birds of China, Experiencing Kamchatka Leaf Warbler on the Kamchatka Peninsula, Exclusive Interview with Mark Brazil, Author of, Brown Eared Pheasant at Xuanzhong Temple, Shanxi, Rare Photos of Crested Goshawk Mating in Shanghai’s Zhongshan Park, http://www.birdskorea.or.kr/Habitats/Yellow-Sea/YSBR/Downloads/Birds-Korea-Status-of-Birds-2014.pdf, http://gull-research.org/papers/gullpapers1/Taimyr_Gulls_Dutch_Birding33_2011_pag9_21.pdf. Your email address will not be published. Extent and density of head streaking is also a feature that changes seasonally and individually in gulls. The breeding European herring gull has adult gray backs and upper wings and white heads and under parts. (PLATE 17.) function of courtship feeding is clearly display. The bird I saw was similar to a Herring Gull but had huge, bright windows closer to the body so maybe just in the secondaries. The IOC does not even recognize taimyrensis as a taxon, let alone a full species. The right-hand panels show Taimyr Gull. Moores wrote the post, and I am proudly publishing it, with a view toward fostering new knowledge. Herring gull chicks and juveniles “play” by carrying around objects and engaging in tug-of-war games. In 1945 a nest presumed to be Herring Gull was seen on Middle Eye, Hilbre. … but where is it (in Mongolian Gull) ? What is important here is that on the same date, two apparently similarly aged gulls show several marked differences from each other, including that one of them still has a lot of streaking on the hind-nape and some grey wash near the eye; while the other, the Mongolian Gull, is already unstreaked and white-headed. American Herring Gull ( smithsonianus ) Z09 3rd & 5th cycle (4CY-5CY), April 2016 & November 2017, Salisbury, MA. Most Taimyr Gulls have very coarse streaking on the nape, too. Eggs are laid around April. The Vega Gull looks more similar to the European Herring Gull Larus argentatus or the American Herring Gull Larus smithsonianus. They also have distinct, separate breeding areas. This is presumably one reason why there are not so many Vega left in the Yellow Sea by mid-March. I may quote Goethe 0937), that a female Herring Gull (Larus argentatus) just returned from feeding on … These gulls should not reach their breeding grounds too early, of course, either, because much of the Taimyr Peninsula will still be under snow and ice until the middle of May—a cold and deadly place for a gull until the summer thaw begins. Herring Gulls are the most common gull in North America. Moores resides in Busan, Republic of Korea. !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)? Sometime in January or February of their second calendar year, Taimyr Gulls begin a rapid moult, with many by the end of February starting to look white-headed, and some showing patches of dark adult-type grey plumage in the scapulars and mantle by March and especially by April. Malling Olsen, Klaus, and Hans Larsson. Much of their breeding range lies to the far northeast of Asia, not to the west or northwest. across land and environments which are hostile to gulls all the way. Picture: Dave Adrien & Dan Prima . Last winter I was watching the gull flock at Turners Falls, MA, paying special attention to when the adults molted into breeding plumage. Moores has lived in East Asia for more than 25 years, first working in Japan for the Japan Wetlands Action Network before moving to the Republic of Korea in 1998. Thank you for your help on this! In Craig’s image above from the Huangpu River in Shanghai, it is easy to see that at more or less the same angle, the upperpart grey of the adult to the rear is darker and a little slatier-looking than that of the wing-tagged gull in the foreground. van Dijk, Klaas, Sergei Kharitonov, Holmer Vonk, and Bart Ebbinge. Available at http://gull-research.org/papers/gullpapers1/Taimyr_Gulls_Dutch_Birding33_2011_pag9_21.pdf (accessed: 9 Mar 2020). Two Pacific Gulls (Larus pacificus) engaging in courtship and mating. For at least on this side of the Yellow Sea, the Vega Gull is much more a species of fishing harbours, mariculture platforms, and sandy beaches. Their characteristic ha-ha-ha-ha alarm call may change to a plaintive yeow in flight or a yelping keow as the threat intensifies. Herring gull pairs return to their same nesting site for so long as the male is alive and has not deserted the female. BY MAUD D. HAVILAHD. Most Taimyr Gulls, like Vega Gulls, are in juvenile plumage through December. It has been extending its range toward the south along the Atlantic Coast in recent decades. Structurally too, most Mongolian Gulls can be pretty obvious, being rather bulkier and more powerful-looking than Vega or Taimyr Gulls: a modest counterpart to the Great Black-backed Gull Larus marinus of the North Atlantic. Breeding further south, their breeding grounds thaw earlier than those of the Taimyr Gull, which in turn means that Mongolian Gulls have to progress into breeding plumage much earlier than either Taimyr or Vega Gull. “Taimyr Gulls: evidence for Pacific winter range, with notes on morphology and breeding.” Dutch Birding 33: 9-21. more help ... HERRING-GULL juvenile (2 of 22) delay: 1 3 5 10 pause? Published by Birds Korea, September 2014. Some of the species found in East Asia, such as the Black-headed Gull Chroicocephalus ridibundus and Mew (or Common) Gull Larus canus, have a very wide geographic range and should be as familiar to domestic birders as they are to visiting birders from Europe and parts of North America. The few previous records of Herring Gulls nesting in the county were all on Wirral. Mongolian Gulls (at least those born and raised in Korea) retain their dark brown juvenile plumage only until August or early September, before they start to moult rapidly into a quite pale-looking first-winter plumage. Nest (built by both sexes) is shallow cup of grasses, twigs, moss. Both are highly distinctive East Asian “specials”; both are dependent on tidal flats in winter; both are globally Vulnerable; and both are confined entirely to this region and lack any counterpart elsewhere in the world (compelling evidence of the importance of the East Asian tidal flats to biodiversity). The bill is bright-yellow with characteristic red spots on the lower tip. Herring Gulls have a rich repertoire of calls, each of which may be modified in different contexts and accompanied by different postures. Leg colour can change seasonally, and bill markings change with age and apparently season too, but structure is more constant. After all, they have the option of remaining close to the coast and to fishing harbours along most of their migration route, with the potential to stop off en route to feed when they need to. I always enjoy studying Herring Gulls, just looking at variation and trying to categorize the birds into age, sex, and regional groups. Some Herring Gulls, especially those resident in colder areas, migrate further south in winter, but many are permanent residents, e.g. Moores worked for several Korean organizations and lectured on NGO studies before co-founding Birds Korea in 2004. Importantly too, all three also have some kind of counterpart in other, better-researched regions. In this guest post, written exclusively for shanghaibirding.com, Moores describes the three widespread Herring-type gulls of East Asia. Most of these gulls migrate huge distances between areas that are very hard to travel to for logistical and geopolitical reasons, and most of the research that has been done on them is not published in English or in peer-reviewed journals. Courtship begins as soon as birds arrive at the colony in the spring, usually mid-March. Herring Gull populations declined by over 3.5% per year between 1966 and 2015, resulting in a cumulative decline of 83%, according to the North American Breeding Bird Survey. This, after all, is the Herring-type gull that nests alongside Black-faced Spoonbills and Chinese Egrets on Yellow Sea islands in Korea and presumably very locally in China too. Available at http://www.birdskorea.or.kr/Habitats/Yellow-Sea/YSBR/Downloads/Birds-Korea-Status-of-Birds-2014.pdf (accessed: 9 Mar 2020). Once pairing has taken place, the birds build a nest or, more often, refurbish an old one. American herring gulls are sometimes regarded as a subspecies of the herring gull, Larus argentatus smithsonianus , or as a separate species, smithsonianus.Larus They are large birds where males have a length of 60-66 cm and an average mass of 1050-1650 grams. Moores, N., Kim, A. The IOC does not list taimyrensis, for example, and UK-based BirdLife International (2017) recently even went the extra step and lumped Mongolian, Taimyr, Vega, and American Herring Gull into a single species, which they then named Arctic Herring Gull Larus smithsonianus (this seems worth repeating: a species that nests as far south as the Yellow Sea is now called Arctic Herring Gull by the world’s premier bird-conservation organisation). 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