Sabine\'s Gull

1/640s at f13., ISO:800, Canon Mark IV 1D w/800mm


The Sabine\'s gull is a small gull. It breeds in the arctic and has a circumpolar distribution through northernmost North America and Eurasia. It migrates south in autumn; most of the population winters at sea in the Pacific off western South America in the cold waters of the Humboldt Current, while Greenland and eastern Canadian birds cross the Atlantic by way of the westernmost fringes of Europe to winter off southwest Africa in the cold waters of the Benguela Current. Occasionally individual Sabine\'s Gulls can be seen off other coasts such as the northeastern United States or further east in Europe, typically following autumn storms. The Sabine\'s gull breeds in colonies on coasts and tundra, laying two or three spotted olive-brown eggs in a ground nest lined with grass. It is very pelagic outside the breeding season. It takes a wide variety of mainly animal food, and will eat any suitable small prey. It also steals eggs from nesting colonies of Arctic Terns.
Cambridge Bay, Canada
 
06/29/2011