It's a Gull

This is not a human-having-bird birth announcement. I'm posting today as Public Service Announcement that some birders don't like to hear the word "seagull". I used to think I was referring to other people when I made this statement. But I recently realized that I am now a person who is irked by the word. 

"There's no such thing as a seagull" is what we birders say. If it's a gull, figure out what it is. (This is not always easy, even for many birders.) If you don't know what it is, call it "a gull."  If you do know what it is, there are over 20 North American possibilities... it's a Western, ring-billed, California, Thayer's, Heermann's, Sabine's, Franklin's, laughing, herring,  mew, little, great black-backed, glaucous-winged, ivory, yellow-footed, yellow-legged, etc. The list goes on, but you won't find "seagull" on it.

Gull and Glare, Ocean Beach, 2011.

Above is a Heermann's gull that I saw at Ocean Beach, SF. This is a common sighting when I saw it in November. This is an attractively colored bird that's pretty easy to identify if you give yourself a chance. Its bill is bright red with a black tip. Its head is pure white and it has a grey belly and darker grey back, and black legs; all its different tones have smooth transitions, as if drawn in pastels.

Heermann's gull can only be seen in western North America. Its world population is only about 525,000, 90 percent of which, amazingly, breed on a single small island in Mexico's Gulf of California.