Wildlife Watching Wednesday: The Hungry Ring-Billed Gull

By: Tom Berg

Gulls, or seagulls, as many people refer to them, comprise a large group of birds that are associated with water and coastlines. The Atlantic and Pacific oceans, the Gulf of Mexico, the Great Lakes – all of these host populations of different species of gulls. In fact, there are about two dozen species of gulls living in North America today.

One of these species is the Ring-Billed Gull. This handsome gull has a pure white head, neck and breast (mature adults, anyway) and a light gray back and wings. The wingtips are black with spots of white. Their legs and eyes are yellow. Their bill is yellow, also, but it has a distinctive black ring around it – thus the name “ring-billed” gull. They are about the same size as an American crow.

Ring-billed gulls can be seen in many places: beaches, landfills, shopping mall parking lots, agricultural fields that have just been plowed and even the parking lot at your local McDonald’s restaurant. Some ring-billed gulls, especially those living along the shores of the Great Lakes, are homebodies and never migrate south in the winter.

Identification of ring-billed gulls (and most other gulls, too), can be tricky. This is especially true of juvenile birds. Young gulls which are only a year or two old are often a mottled brownish-white color with a somewhat dark bill. Their breast, head and neck will have varying amounts of brown feathers. By their second winter, their backs are mostly gray and the brown mottling is starting to disappear.

Ring-billed gulls are always hungry. They will eat almost anything, from a french fry or piece of hamburger bun in a fast food parking lot to a minnow or other small fish swimming along the shoreline of a lake, river or ocean. Gulls living on dry land eat plenty of insects like ants, beetles, moths and flies. They love following farmer’s tractors as they plow their fields, too, where they easily pluck worms and insects disturbed by the tractor’s plow.

Ring-billed gulls are real survivors, and since they don’t mind living around people they are here to stay. Keep an eye out for them the next time you are out and about!

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