Western Gull Larus Occidentali

Description: 24-27” large Gull. Snowy white, with dark slaty back and wings. Yellow eye and bill; breeding adult has a red dot near tip of lower mandible. Pinkish or flesh-colored feet. In winter, head and nape light dusky. First-year immature are dark gray-brown with dark, almost black primaries, contrasting with lighter areas on nape and rump; bill dark.

Voice: Most commonly utters a raucous series of similar notes. Also loud squealing calls.

Habitat: Coastal waterways, beaches, harbors, dumps; open ocean.

Nesting: 3 light buff, blotched eggs in a grass or seaweed nest in a depression, protected and slightly isolated by broken terrain. In colonies on rocky headlands, islets, or dikes in the tideland, but mainly on offshore islands such as the Farallon Islands off San Francisco, where there are now over ten thousand pairs. The male is the chief provider and defends the territory and nest; the female defends the chicks.

Range: Nests on the Pacific Coast from Washington to Baja California and through the Gulf of California. Regularly occurs in winter along the coast of British Columbia.

The large gulls of the Pacific Coast had a common ancestor but evolved separately in isolation during past Ice Ages. The Glaucous-winged gull resembles the Western Gull in size and habits, but its coloration is extremely light, as befits a gull living among the ice floes of Alaska today or among glaciers of the Pacific Northwest in the past.