American Herring Gull

The American Herring Gull (Larus smithsonianus) is a species of gull that breeds in North America. The word "gull" comes from Middle English gulle which is from a Common Brythonic unattested term which is descended from Proto-Celtic wēlannā which is ultimately from Proto-Indo-European wai meaning "the wailer" or an interjection.

Taxonomy

American herring gull
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Charadriiformes
Family:	Laridae

Description

Adults have light-gray backs, black wingtips, and white heads and underparts. In winter, dusky streaks mark their heads. Herring Gulls take four years to reach adult plumage. Juveniles are mottled brown; second-year birds are brown but show gray on the back. The underparts are generally much more uniform than on European Herring Gulls, which are more coarsely streaked, especially on the belly and flanks. The colour is browner or more grey-brown, and some, especially from August to mid December, may show quite chocolate-brown underparts.

Distribution and habitat

The American herring gull breeds across Alaska and northern Canada, south to the Great Lakes and along the Atlantic Coast south to North Carolina. It winters from southern Alaska south to Mexico and from the Great Lakes and Massachusetts south to the Caribbean and Central America.

Behavior

Rallying around fishing boats or refuse dumps, they are loud and competitive scavengers, happy to snatch another bird's meal. They spend much of their time perched near food sources, often in congregations of gulls. Look for Herring Gulls in winter along coasts and near large reservoirs, lakes, and major rivers.

Status

Herring Gulls are ideal as bioindicators of ecosystem and environmental health, and as model organisms to study ecology, behavior, and the effects of environmental variables and contaminants because they are diurnal, common, abundant, large, and long-lived, as well as they nest in colonies over a wide geographical.

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