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Sabine's Gull | Xema sabini
Vorkstaartmeeuw | Gaviota de Sabine
Sabine's Gull is a small, tern-like gull that breeds on the Arctic tundra and spends the rest of the year on the open sea. The American population migrates through the eastern Pacific and passes the guide area in spring and autumn, sometimes in flocks of hundreds. From shore the species is rarely seen.
Voice
Almost silent away from the breeding grounds. At the breeding site a high, grating, tern-like kreee.
Recording: Stein Ø. Nilsen — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
27–33 cm, small, with a slightly forked tail and long, pointed wings. In all plumages the upperwing is three-coloured: grey mantle and wing coverts, grey-brown in juveniles, black outer primaries and a large white triangle on the inner primaries and secondaries. Breeding adults have a dark slate-grey hood with a narrow black border and a black bill with a yellow tip; outside the breeding season the head is white with a dark hindneck. Juveniles are grey-brown and scaly on the head, mantle and coverts, with a black terminal tail band and a dark bill.
Confusion species
Bonaparte's Gull Chroicocephalus philadelphia has a white leading edge to the primaries instead of a white triangle on the rear of the wing, and a square tail. Juvenile Black-legged Kittiwakes Rissa tridactyla have a black zigzag band across the wing and a black collar. Swallow-tailed Gull Creagrus furcatus has the same wing pattern but is much larger, with a red eye-ring and a deeply forked tail. Juvenile Laughing Gulls Leucophaeus atricilla are larger and darker, without a white wing triangle.
Habitat
Open sea and the edge of the continental shelf, often where cold, nutrient-rich water wells up, as in the Gulf of Tehuantepec. It picks small prey from the surface in flight or while swimming, sometimes in mixed flocks with terns and phalaropes. It rarely comes close inshore, except after storms.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Passage migrant along the entire Pacific coast, from Baja California and the Gulf of California to Panama, mainly far offshore and most numerous in the Gulf of Tehuantepec and off Costa Rica and Guatemala. Some birds winter off the coast of the south of the guide area. On the Caribbean side only a few records. Outside the guide area the species breeds around the Arctic on the tundra and winters mainly off the west coast of South America and south-western Africa.
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Pelagic trips off the Pacific coast in September and October and in spring offer the best chance. The crisp three-coloured wing pattern is visible even at long range.
Conservation status
Not threatened globally. The breeding grounds on the tundra are largely undisturbed and there is no evidence of a strong trend.
Scientific name
Xema sabini | (Sabine, 1819)
Sabine described the species in 1819 as Larus Sabini; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Xema was introduced in 1819 by Leach. Xema appears to be an invented name without meaning; William Leach introduced it in 1819 without explanation. sabini honours the British polar explorer Edward Sabine (1788–1883), who collected the first specimens on islets off the west coast of Greenland; his brother Joseph described the species from that material. The specimen the first description was based on came from the Sabine Islands, Greenland.