I discovered a flock of Franklin’s Gulls a few weeks ago. Seeing the limited breeding area shown on the map, I consider myself privileged to be living right in this zone to welcome them.
I heard the calls of gulls from afar, even before i saw them. I admit I wasn’t too excited. My initial thought was, ‘just another bunch of ordinary seagulls’. When I got closer, I saw a huge flock, close to a hundred of them.
Only after I’d uploaded my photos to my laptop did I realize these were not ‘ordinary gulls’ (for us I suppose are the more common Ring-billed Gulls). At first, I could not tell what they were. I had to look up the detailed descriptions to identify them.
They were Franklin’s Gulls, breeding adults. Their black head and white crescent eyes make them look like they’re hooded. They look almost cartoonish, comical, everyone full of character.
Below their dark hood is a white neck, their wings dark gray. The trailing edge of the wing is white, wing tip black with white spots. Slender and handsome:
See the beak of the gull on the upper left. In the light, it’s translucent orangey-red:
Beautiful wings looking from the top:
completely snow-white from underneath:
See Jonathan Livingston Seagull soar above the crowd, gliding in solitude:
After learning about the Franklin’s Gulls, I found I didn’t know much about the ‘ordinary gulls’ either… maybe nothing is ordinary in Nature.
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