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Laughing Gull | Leucophaeus atricilla
Lachmeeuw | Gaviota Guanaguanare
The Laughing Gull is a medium-sized dark grey gull of the American Atlantic coast and the Caribbean. It regularly crosses the Atlantic to western Europe and West Africa, but southern Africa lies at the very edge of its vagrant range: there are only a few records.
Voice
A high, nasal laughing ha-ha-ha-haah-haah, from which the species takes its name; usually silent away from the breeding grounds.
Recording: David Darrell-Lambert — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
36–41 cm. A slender, long-winged gull with a long, slightly drooping bill. The upperparts are dark slate grey and merge without a clear white division into the black wingtip, which has no or barely any white mirrors; the trailing edge of the wing is white. In breeding plumage it has a black hood with broken white eye-crescents and a dark red bill; in non-breeding plumage a white head with grey smudges behind the eye and a blackish bill. Legs dark. First-year birds are grey-brown on the breast and flanks, with a broad black tail band and a dark outer wing.
Confusion species
Franklin's Gull Leucophaeus pipixcan is smaller, with a shorter, straight bill, a more extensive half-hood in non-breeding plumage, broader white eye-crescents and a white band between the grey and the black of the wingtip, with white tips to the primaries. Grey-Headed Gull Chroicocephalus cirrocephalus is paler grey, with white mirrors and a white wedge on the leading edge of the wing.
Habitat
Coasts, harbours, estuaries and coastal lakes, sometimes sewage works and rubbish dumps near the coast. It eats fish, crustaceans, insects and refuse, picking food from the water surface.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of southern Africa.
Range and movements
Only a few accepted records in the region, along the coast of South Africa. It breeds along the Atlantic coast of North America, in the Caribbean and on the Pacific coast of Mexico, and winters south to northern South America. It wanders to western Europe and West Africa.
How and when to look
The best chance of a Laughing Gull is among flocks of gulls and terns on the coast of the Western and Eastern Cape, after spells of strong westerly winds. Look for a dark grey gull without white mirrors and with a long, drooping bill.
Conservation status
Not threatened; the IUCN lists it under the older name Larus atricilla. The North American population has recovered strongly after a deep slump in the nineteenth century. Of no conservation significance in southern Africa.
Scientific name
Leucophaeus atricilla | (Linnaeus, 1758)
Linnaeus described the species in 1758 as Larus Atricilla; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Leucophaeus was introduced in 1855 by Bruch. Leucophaeus is Ancient Greek, from leukos 'white' and phaios 'dusky'. atricilla combines Latin ater 'black' with modern Latin cilla 'tail', after the black tail of young birds; Linnaeus may have meant atricapilla 'black-capped'. The specimen the first description was based on came from the Bahamas.