Ivory gull Pagophila eburnea

Identification Tips:

• Length: 14 inches Wingspan: 41 inches
• Sexes similar
• Fairly small gull
• Black legs
• Black bill with yellow tip
• Large dark eye

Adult:

• Entirely white plumage

Juvenile/First-year:

• Mostly white plumage with dark smudging around face
• Dark, terminal tail band
• Black tips to flight feathers, coverts, and some scapulars

Similar species:

Iceland and Glaucous Gulls are similarly pale but are much larger and lack the black legs and yellow-tipped bill. First-year plumage is unmistakeable.

Length and wingspan from: Robbins, C.S., Bruun, B., Zim, H.S., (1966). Birds of North America. New York: Western Publishing Company, Inc.