Ring-billed Gull, Larus delawarensis

Local status: Very rare vagrant

Not all rare gulls are picked out from the huge flocks of wintering birds! Indeed checking gull breeding colonies and spring roosts is definitely time well spent as this record proves, and the next record of a Ring-billed Gull may well be found in this way. However, it is well worth checking playing fields and local parks, wherever Common Gulls, Larus canus, and Black-headed Gulls, Chroicocephalus ridibundus, congregate, for the chance of finding the second Ring-billed Gull for the York area.


Records:
1993: Wheldrake Ings, 7th May. First-summer