Bonaparte’s gull

Bonaparte’s gull is smaller and more graceful than most gulls, with a flight that looks more like a tern’s. In the breeding season it has a neat black hood, and in fall and winter that is reduced to a dark smudge behind the eye. The bill is thin and black.

Unlike most gulls, Bonaparte’s gulls nest in trees, building their nests in spruce and tamarack around northern lakes and bogs. In Manitoba they are most often seen in migration, feeding in flocks over open water and snapping insects and small fish from the surface. They winter along the coasts and the Great Lakes.

Here is one of my favourite frames of this bird.

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