Ring-billed Gull

How to identify

Field marks

1. Breeding adult has a black ring on its yellow bill
2. Adult back and wings silver-gray; wingtips black with white patches
3. Breeding adult has white head, neck and underparts
4. Breeding adult has yellow legs and pale yellow eyes with red eye-rings

Male, female and young

Male slightly larger with a slightly longer bill; juvenile mostly brown, taking about three years to acquire breeding plumage.

Voice

Loud, harsh calls, higher in pitch than European Herring Gull; alarm calls are “kree, kree” or “kyow, kyow, kyow”, and a non-aggressive call is “mew”.

Similar species

Common Gull

Ring-billed Gull is larger and heavier, with slightly longer legs and a black ring on the bill in summer. Common Gull lacks the ring and has larger white patches at the wingtips in flight.

Where and when it's recorded

Busiest months: May · Most records: United States, Canada, Mexico

Ring-billed Gull has been recorded at 981 of the 8,276 birding hotspots we track, in 49 countries and regions.

Records by month Northern Hemisphere

Where it's recorded most

1. Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary, Lincoln Park, ChicagoUnited States44,363 records
2. Toronto – Colonel Samuel Smith ParkCanada21,289 records
3. Tommy Thompson ParkCanada19,241 records

Countries and regions with the most records

United StatesCanadaMexicoBermudaSt. Pierre & MiquelonPanamaBahamasIreland

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 ring-billed gull (Larus delawarensis) is a medium-sized gull native to North America, breeding in Canada and the northern Contiguous United States, and wintering mainly in the United States and northern Mexico. The genus name is from Latin Larus which appears to have referred to a gull or other large seabird. The specific delawarensis refers to the Delaware River.

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

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