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| [Note Guidelines] Photographer's Note |
“Black Tailed Gull” is the name of this photo taken today. This is a very rare find as it seldom visits maybe every 10 to 15 years according to one bird watcher at the lake.
The Black-tailed Gull (Larus crassirostris) is a medium-sized (46 cm) gull, with a wingspan of 126-128 cm. The bird is resident in East Asia, including China, Taiwan, Japan and Korea. It is a vagrant to Alaska and northeastern North America.
It has yellow legs and a red and black spot at the end of the bill. This gull takes 4 years to reach full adult plumage. As the name suggests, it has a black tail. The bird has a cat-like call, giving it its Japanese name — Umineko, "Sea cat" and Korean name — Gwaeng-yi gull, which means "cat" gull.
The Black-tailed Gull feeds mainly on small fish, molluscs, crustaceans scraps and carrion. It often follows ships and commercial fishing fleets. It does steal food from other sea.
This very infrequent visitor from East Asia is about the same size as a Ring-billed Gull. In adult plumage, which it attains in four years, the mantle is a bit darker than that of the Western Gull and the tail shows a prominent dark band just above the white tail tip. The yellow bill has a red ring close to the tip with a black ring behind it. The eye and the legs are yellow. The head is strongly streaked with brown in winter. |
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![Silver Star Critiquer/Gold Note Writer [C: 33 W: 5 N: 197]](https://i1.treknature.com/misc/s-n-g.gif){kind=small}
