The Laughing Gull Larus (or Leucophaeus if you go by the 49th Supplement to the A.O.U. Check-list of North American Birds) atricilla, is a common, medium-sized gull of North and South America. It breeds on the Atlantic coast of North America, the Caribbean, and northern South America. Northernmost populations migrate further south in winter, and the species is a regular vagrant to western Europe (a memorable influx to the UK in late October 2005 brought a minimum of 18 - and anywhere up to a possibly maximum of 35 - individuals on one day alone). Hopefully therefore this gallery will be of interest to both North American and European readers.

It’s perhaps worth noting that in the following account I use terms like ‘juvenile’, ‘immature’, and ‘1st winter’. A quick explanation may help. ‘Juveniles’ are young birds (a couple of months old) that have replaced the downy feathers they are first born with and have fledged. The juvenile plumage is only held for a few months (these first feathers aren’t very strong), it looks very different to the adult plumage (so that the adults don’t see their own young as competitors and turn on them) and is gradually replaced by a ‘1st winter’ plumage - ie the bird (at a few months old) will soon be facing its first ever winter. By the spring most gulls are moving from ‘1st winter’ into a ‘1st summer’ plumage. From then on the bird moves through a succession of plumages until it reaches adulthood - how long that takes depends on the species (in general though small gulls become adults more quickly than large ones). Until they reach adulthood, all gulls are ‘immatures’ - ie they are not sexually mature.

Laughing Gulls take 3 years to acquire a full adult plumage, though as the captions below explain because moult in gulls is so complex and prolonged it’s sometimes difficult to accurately say what stage in life an individual is at when it’s ‘immature’ - ie somewhere between juvenile and adult. To see what I mean by that note that all the photos below were taken on the same beach in Miami on the same day (in early November): there is typically a huge range of plumages on show and no two individuals look exactly the same (which can makes gull-watching so challenging and frustrating for beginners and long-time birders alike!)…

Mixed age flock of Laughing Gulls, Miami, November.

 

Juvenile moulting into 1st winter: note few new greyish mantle feathers, very bleached and very worn wing coverts, all-dark wings, and predominantly dark head.

 

 

 

As moult progresses from ‘juvenile’ to ‘1st winter’ the mantle and scapulars feathers are replaced with darker and more adult-like feathers. Remember though that all these photographs were taken on the same day. Moult is not uniform and different individuals lose and replace feathers at different ’speeds’: look hard enough and you’ll find that no two birds are ever exactly the same.

 

Young Laughing Gulls have notably long, dark bills, heavily lidded eyes, and a strong grey wash along the hindneck and upper breast (a good distinguishing feature from the somewhat similar Franklin’s Gull Larus/Leucophaeus pipixcan, which has much whiter underparts at the same age).

 

Laughing Gulls are notably long-winged: 1st winter birds (like this one) have all-dark primaries.

 

 

As moult progresses further - towards a ‘1st summer’ plumage - the worn/ragged and increasingly bleached wing coverts are replaced with fresh adult-like grey ones. Laughing Gulls at this time are increasingly a mix of old and new feathers - particularly the wing coverts and tertials - though remember this immature bird was photographed on the same day in November as the ones above and an exact “age” becomes more difficult to assign. It’s worth bearing in mind that aging gulls is not quite as precise a science as some people would have you believe, as there are a) so many intermediate stages between ‘juvenile’ and ‘adult’ and b) feathers are replaced over such long periods that the distinction between eg “1st winter” and “1st summer” becomes fairly blurred.

 

This photo shows just how variable immature (ie non-adult) Laughing Gulls can be. The bird in the foreground appears to be far more advanced than the other immatures on the same beach. Several of the tertials (the large, rounded feathers that overlie the primaries) have already been replaced, as have virtually all the mantle and covert feathers - though the old, bleached juvenile greater coverts can still be seen. How should this individual be aged? It looks like a ‘1st summer’ but that plumage won’t be held until the following March and August (a bird’s ‘1st winter’ comes before its ‘1st summer’ remember, as before it’s ‘1st winter’ it was a ‘juvenile’). Is this just a very advanced 1st winter then? It would seem so…

 

Non-breeding adult Laughing Gulls, Miami, November.

 

 

 

 

The last four photos all show birds that are non-breeding adults (breeding-plumaged birds of course have dark heads and reddish bills): they have a full suite of grey mantle feathers and grey wing coverts, and all also have white primary tips. Once a Laughing Gull reaches “adulthood” it is not possible to age it beyond saying that it is at least three years old, as there is effectively no difference in plumage between an adult of three years and an adult of eg eight years.