Mouette de Ross

Identification

This small bird is similar in size and some plumage characteristics to the little gull. It is slightly larger and longer winged than the little gull species, and has more-pointed wings and a wedge-shaped tail. Its legs are red. Summer adults are pale grey above and white below, with a pink flush to the breast, and a neat black neck ring. In winter, the breast tints and neck collar are lost and a small dark crescent develops behind the eye.<p>Young birds resemble winter adults, but have a dark "W" pattern on the wings in flight, like young little gulls. The juveniles take two years to attain full adult plumage.<p>Ross's gull measurements:

Taxonomie

Nom scientifique

Rhodostethia rosea

Autorité

(MacGillivray, W, 1824)

Ordre

Charadriiformes

Famille

Laridae

Genre

Rhodostethia

Répartition et habitat

Ross's gull breeds in the high Arctic of northernmost North America, and northeast Siberia. It migrates only short distances south in autumn, most of the population wintering in northern latitudes at the edge of the pack ice in the northern Bering Sea and in the Sea of Okhotsk, although some birds reach more temperate areas, such as north west Europe; in February 2016 they were sighted in Cornwall and Ireland according to the BTOs 'BirdTrack', in December 2021 two were seen in Belgium, one in Nieuwpoort and one in Zeebrugge. In North America, a Ross's gull has been spotted as far south as Salton Sea in California, although sightings this far south are extremely rare. The summer breeding grounds are tundra with sedges, grass tussocks, dwarf willows, bushes, lichens and pools.

Aire de reproduction

PAL, NA : w, e Greenland (rare); Arctic ne Siberia, locally from Taimyr Pen. to Kolyma River; Arctic ne Canada and formerly Churchill, Manitoba (wc Hudson Bay, ec Canada)

Aire hors reproduction

Arctic Ocean, in Beaufort (n of Alaska) and Labrador seas (at least)

Migration

Complete migrants

Conservation

Tendance de la population

unknown