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Mediterranean Gull | Ichthyaetus melanocephalus
Zwartkopmeeuw | Gaviota cabecinegra
A sturdy, pale 'black-headed' gull with pure white wings and a jet-black hood in breeding plumage. It breeds mainly around the Black Sea and winters in large numbers along the Mediterranean, where it is one of the characteristic gulls of the coasts of Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and the Levant in winter.
Voice
A distinctive nasal, mewing kyow or yeh-ah, quite unlike the screaming of Black-headed Gull; migrating flocks call a lot.
Recording: Christian Kerihuel — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
Slightly larger and bulkier than Black-headed Gull, with a rounded head, a thick, blunt bill and fairly long legs. Adults have a very pale silvery-grey mantle and all-white wingtips without black, so the wings look gleaming white in flight. In breeding plumage a black hood that reaches far onto the rear of the head, with thick white eye-crescents, and a blood-red bill with a black and yellow band; the legs are red. In winter a white head with a dark, smudgy mask behind the eye. First-years have a black tail band, a pale grey inner hand and a dark bill; second-years still show black streaks in the wingtip.
Confusion species
Black-headed Gull (Chroicocephalus ridibundus) is slimmer, with a thinner bill, a brown hood and black wingtips with a white leading edge. Pallas's Gull (Ichthyaetus ichthyaetus) also has a black hood but is much larger, with a yellow bill. Young birds can resemble young Common Gulls (Larus canus), but have a pale inner wing, a heavier, black bill and a dark mask.
Habitat
Coasts, harbours, beaches and shallow inshore waters, also lagoons and estuaries; in winter it also feeds on fields and rubbish tips near the coast. Rarely far inland.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the habitats of North Africa and the Middle East.
Range and movements
Winters in large numbers along the Mediterranean coast of North Africa, most numerous from Tunisia to the Nile Delta, and further along the coasts of Algeria and Morocco (also on the Atlantic coast south to Agadir and scarce beyond). In the east a common winter visitor on the coasts of Israel, Lebanon and Syria. Scarce on the Red Sea (including Eilat and the Gulf of Suez) and a rare vagrant in the Persian Gulf, Oman and Iraq; hardly known in Yemen. Does not breed in the region. Beyond the region it breeds mainly on the northern coast of the Black Sea (Ukraine) and patchily in Turkey, Greece and western and central Europe, and also winters along the Atlantic coast of western Europe.
- Resident
- Summer visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Winter visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Along the Tunisian, Libyan and Egyptian coasts in winter often in flocks of hundreds in harbours and on beaches; in Israel easy to see at the Ma'agan Michael fish ponds and the harbours of Haifa and Tel Aviv. By March many birds already have a black hood.
Conservation status
Not globally threatened. The breeding population around the Black Sea fluctuates strongly, but its range has expanded in Europe. In the region it is threatened by pollution and oil along the coast and by bycatch in fisheries.
Scientific name
Ichthyaetus melanocephalus | (Temminck, 1820)
Temminck described the species in 1820 as Larus melanocephalus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Ichthyaetus was introduced in 1829 by Kaup. Ichthyaetus is Greek, from ikhthus 'fish' and aetos 'eagle', hence 'fish eagle'. melanocephalus is Greek, from melas 'black' and -kephalos '-headed', for the black hood of the breeding plumage. The specimen the first description was based on came from the Adriatic coast.