Larus smithsonianus
Order Charadriiformes
Family Laridae
Subfamily Larinae
Adult in summer.— Head, neck, tail, and under parts pure white; back and wings pearl-gray; ends of quill-feathers black, the two outer, for over seven inches, spotted near the extremity with white and tipped with white; bill yellow; feet pale flesh-color.
Adult in winter.— Similar, but head and hind neck streaked with grayish.
Immature in the first winter.— Upper and under parts brownish; tips of wings and tail blackish. Later in various stages with whitish head, and brown upper parts; tail white with a broad black tip; bill crossed by a dark band at the tip.
Nest, of grass, moss, etc., either on the ground or in trees.
Eggs, grayish-brown, blotched with chocolate.
The Herring Gull breeds commonly along the coast of Maine and less commonly on some of the inland lakes of that State. On Great Duck Island off Mt. Desert, on Little Spoon Island, and on No Man’s Land very large colonies now breed. In winter it is very common along the coast of New York and New England and is the common gull in all the harbors. Though none are now known to breed regularly west of No Man’s Land off Penobscot Bay, flocks of greater or less size spend the whole summer off the north shore of Massachusetts, and a few are found at the same season off Nantucket and the Vineyard. Early in August these flocks receive accessions from the north, and by the end of September large flocks have returned to their winter feeding-grounds in the harbors of cities and settlements, large or small. At this season, too, and in spring, gulls visit inland waters, settling on ponds near the sea-coast as long as there is open water; along the Hudson and the Connecticut they are common migrants, but they are very rare migrants in Berkshire County, Mass. By the end of April, migration is practically over. On the breeding-ground they regularly light on trees, but during the rest of the year, they spend their time either floating on the water, or circling over it, in search of refuse, or gather in large coni panies on the exposed sand-bars and mud-flats. If disturbed on the breeding-ground the gulls circle about overhead, repeating ceaselessly a dry kak, kak-kak, or a loud cry like the scream of a Red-shouldered Hawk. In winter, when flocks are settling down on a sand-bar, they are often very noisy, whining and squealing in a high-pitched voice.
The old birds have the head, tail, and under parts white, and wings and back gray; the wings are tipped with black. The immature birds are at first uniformly brown, but as they begin to change to the adult plumage, many intermediate stages are to be seen. The Herring Gull is by far the commonest species in winter; in summer the much smaller Tern, or Mackerel Gull, is commoner in certain waters, as about the islands south of Cape Cod, and along parts of Long Island Sound. It will be well, before attempting to identify the other, less common species of gull or tern, to study carefully the appearance of the gulls which are to be seen in every harbor along our coast, till one is thoroughly familiar with their size and their different plumages.
Hoffmann – A Guide to the Birds of New England and Eastern New York (1904)