All species › Waders, gulls and terns › Gulls and terns › Black-Headed Gull
Black-Headed Gull | Chroicocephalus ridibundus
Kokmeeuw | Gaviota Reidora
The Black-Headed Gull is one of the commonest gulls in Europe and Asia, but in southern Africa an exceptional vagrant that easily hides among the very similar Grey-headed and Hartlaub's Gulls. There are no more than about ten records, scattered over the interior and the coast.
Voice
Usually silent in the region. Elsewhere a sharp, grating kreeaar and a short kek.
Recording: Julien Bottinelli — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
35–39 cm. In non-breeding plumage, the one most likely in the region, a white head with a dark ear spot and a faint dark band over the crown; in breeding plumage a chocolate-brown hood with a narrow white eye-ring. The eye is dark, the bill and legs red, the bill with a dark tip. The upperparts are pale grey. The best feature is the wing: a white wedge along the leading edge of the outer primaries, with a narrow black trailing edge and tip, while the inner primaries are dark grey from below. Immatures have a brown carpal bar, a black tail band and an orange-red bill with a dark tip.
Confusion species
Grey-Headed Gull Chroicocephalus cirrocephalus is larger, with a pale iris, and has black outer primaries with white mirrors; in breeding plumage a pale grey hood. Hartlaub's Gull Chroicocephalus hartlaubii has a dark eye, a slender dark red bill and likewise a black wingtip with white mirrors, without a dark ear spot in non-breeding plumage. The white wedge in the forewing with its narrow black border is the decisive difference from both. Franklin's Gull Leucophaeus pipixcan is darker grey, with a dark half-hood in non-breeding plumage.
Habitat
Freshwater lakes, reservoirs, sewage works, lagoons and estuaries, and the coast; in the region often in flocks of Grey-headed or Hartlaub's Gulls. An omnivore that eats insects, worms, small fish and refuse, often at rubbish dumps and along coastal pools.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of southern Africa.
Range and movements
In the region about seven accepted records: on the central coast of Namibia and in the Caprivi Strip, in north-central Zimbabwe, in central Mozambique, on the Cape Peninsula and twice in Gauteng in South Africa. It breeds from Iceland and western Europe to Kamchatka and winters to the African coast north of the equator, the Nile valley, the Gulf and southern Asia; scarce in East Africa to Kenya and Tanzania.
How and when to look
Check flocks of Grey-Headed Gulls at sewage works and reservoirs inland, for instance in Gauteng, and flocks of Hartlaub's Gulls on the coast for a slightly smaller gull with a dark ear spot and a white leading edge to the wing. Flight photographs are almost essential.
Conservation status
Not threatened; the IUCN lists it under the older name Larus ridibundus. The world population numbers millions of birds, although numbers are falling in parts of western Europe. Of no conservation significance in southern Africa.
Scientific name
Chroicocephalus ridibundus | (Linnaeus, 1766)
Linnaeus described the species in 1766 as Larus ridibundus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Chroicocephalus was introduced in 1836 by Eyton. Chroicocephalus combines the Ancient Greek khrōikos 'coloured' with -kephalos '-headed'. ridibundus is Latin for 'laughing', after the strident call. The specimen the first description was based on came from European seas.