Common Gull

How to identify

Field marks

1. Back gray; underparts white
2. Bill shorter and more pointed than in Ring-billed Gull, greenish-yellow
3. Wingtips black; large white mirrors on outer flight feathers
4. Legs yellow in the breeding season, duller in winter

Male, female and young

Juvenile has scaly blackish-brown upperparts; legs are pink, turning gray in the second year and eventually yellow.

Voice

High-pitched “laughter”.

Similar species

Ring-billed Gull

Common Gull is slightly smaller, with a shorter, more pointed greenish-yellow bill that is unmarked in the breeding season. In winter, an indistinct black band often appears near the bill tip, sometimes leading to confusion with Ring-billed Gull.

Where and when it's recorded

Common Gull has been recorded at 1,343 of the 8,171 birding hotspots we track, in 78 countries and regions.

Records by month Northern Hemisphere

Where it's recorded most

1. Amwell HMWT NRUnited Kingdom4,496 records
2. Titchwell Marsh RSPB ReserveUnited Kingdom4,086 records
3. Spurn Bird Observatory Recording AreaUnited Kingdom2,859 records

Countries and regions with the most records

United KingdomSwedenNorwayFinlandPolandIrelandDenmarkGermany

eBird records via GBIF up to 2024-12-31. A record means someone listed it; more records partly mean more birders, not more birds.

About

The common gull (Larus canus) is a medium-sized gull that breeds in cool temperate regions of the Palearctic from Iceland and Scotland east to Kamchatka in the Russian Far East. Most common gulls migrate further south in winter, reaching the Mediterranean Sea, the southern Caspian Sea, and the seas around China and Japan; northwest European populations are at least partly resident. The closely related short-billed gull was formerly often included in this species, which was then sometimes known collectively as "mew gull".

Excerpt from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0 · authors · Read more on Wikipedia

Questions