Ring-billed gull

Pale grey wings tipped in black, yellow legs, and a clean black ring around the bill give the ring-billed gull its name and its tidy look. One of the most familiar gulls in Manitoba, it is as comfortable over a lake or river as it is circling a parking lot, a field, or a shoreline.

Ring-billed gulls eat fish, insects, earthworms, and almost anything else they can scavenge, and they will readily chase one another for a catch. Young birds are mottled brown and grey and take about three years to reach adult plumage, and the species nests in noisy colonies on islands and open shorelines through the summer.

Here is one of my favourite frames of this bird: two ring-billed gulls in flight, one carrying a fish.

Two ring-billed gulls in flight, one carrying a fish in its bill, Manitoba

Photos

  • Two ring-billed gulls in flight, one carrying a fish in its bill, over a blurred grey background, Manitoba
  • Ring-billed gull perched on a weathered driftwood branch beside a herring gull, Manitoba

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