Sabine's gull Xema sabini

Identification Tips:

• Length: 11 inches
• Small gull
• Shallowly forked tail

Adult alternate:

• Black head
• Black bill with yellow tip
• White neck and underparts
• Gray mantle
• Bold wing pattern: black outer primaries bordered by white triangle on trailing edge of wing extending to wrist and gray inner wing
• White tips to black primaries
• Dark eye with red orbital ring
• Black legs
• White tail

Adult basic:

• Similar to adult alternate but has white head with dark smudges

Juvenile/First-year:

• Gray-brown rear of head, nape, mantle, and sides of breast
• Thin white edges to mantle create scalloped look
• White underparts
• Wing pattern similar to adult but inner wing is brown
• Black primaries lack white tips
• Dark bill
• Pinkish legs
• Black terminal tail band

Similar species:

In flight, the bold wing pattern is diagnostic. At rest, adults can be told by their yellow-tipped bills. Immatures can be told from other small immature gulls by their scalloped, brownish, not gray, mantles and forked tails.

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