They soar and glide with the grace of our most elegant birds. They are content exploring the high seas for fish or picking through dumpsters for fast-food leftovers. They are approachable and audacious.
Now that we have put men on the moon, ended the Cold War and elected an African American man president, surely we have advanced enough as a people to finally embrace gulls. Yes we can. From now until around Inauguration Day is high season for gull-watching in New England.
But first, let’s make one thing perfectly clear: They should not be called “seagulls.” It is a dismissive term for a gull, even those spending much of their lives at sea. Gulls exemplify the maxim that nature is more diverse than we know. The Earth is home to about 50 gull species. They live on every continent in a medley of habitats. Among the few animals surviving closest to the North Pole is the exquisite ivory gull. The kelp gull is found on the Antarctic Peninsula. In between, the planet is downright “gullible” (if the word could only be used that way). We see a dozen or so reliable species here in New England.
I have been lucky enough to view gulls from a variety of locations—from the mouth of the Columbia River to a celebrated garbage dump in Brownsville, Texas; from the shores of Lake Champlain to a choice sewage treatment plant in Rochester, NH. With all due humility, I would like to think I am a better person for it.
So why watch gulls? Well, the thrushes and warblers are gone. If you want color and birdsong you must wait until spring (or go to the Tropics this winter). This is November, after all. Some of us need fresh reasons to go outside. Gulls teach us by example to enjoy winter. They are content to be in the moment, to sit there on the ice (where we can get good looks at them) or to slice the breezes with dignity. Watching them fly, I actually become jealous.
Here is a better reason to watch gulls now: They tend to migrate in November and December. Sometimes they come here from far away. Ivory gulls prefer the arctic but have graced the shores of Lake Champlain. Slaty-backed gulls live in Asia, but at least one wayward bird has visited that sewage treatment plant in inland New Hampshire. And if anything can motivate a birdwatcher, it is a rare visitor, a vagrant with no business being here. Gulls oblige.
In the presence of a rare black-tailed gull in Charlotte, VT, (it should have been in Asia at the time), I overheard birders ascribing to this gull superlatives normally reserved for the likes of the resplendent quetzal, regarded as one of the most beautiful birds on the planet. It mattered not that this was “only a gull.” In the unified field of birdwatching, rarity and beauty are interchangeable. An African vulture would be drop-dead gorgeous in the White Mountains.
Even so, many birdwatchers don’t bother with these birds. One reason is that gulls pose some of the greatest identification challenges in all of birding. Many gull species take three or four years before reaching their final adult plumage, which is usually a sharp combination of white, gray and black. During each of their youthful years, however, many gulls show distinct stages of brown mottling, which can also vary seasonally from summer to winter. The result is that one of these four-year gulls can show eight different plumages. To the novice, it is like identifying snowflakes.
So here is some advice for the beginning gull-watcher: Start with adults, which show no mottling other than brownish streaks on the head in winter.
And here is a quick guide to the adults of our three most abundant species: The herring gull has a clean white body and tail with a uniform gray upper-side, black wingtips with white spots, an orange dot on a yellow bill, and pink legs.
The ring-billed gull is a smaller version of the herring gull except that it has (fittingly) a black ring around its bill and yellow legs.
The great black-backed gull, the largest gull in the world, looks a bit like a herring gull except that its upper-side is slate black (not gray like most other gulls).
Beyond those three, consult your favorite field guide. Give gulls their due. You need not be like musician Neil Young, whose nomenclature gaffe we shall forgive when he sang:
“Now I’m livin’ out here on the beach, but those seagulls are still out of reach.”