Foam Lake Birding No. 54

No. 54
As I mentioned in article No. 12, there are two white headed gulls that occur regularly in our area. One is the less common California Gull and the other is the very common, and this week’s featured bird, the Ring Billed Gull. Since I had already covered all gulls in general quite extensively in articles 12 and 31, I did not feel that I should devote an entire article to the Ring Billed, however, because it is so common, I eventually decided otherwise. Like the black headed Franklin’s Gulls, both the California and the Ring Billed follow farmers working their fields.
The California and the Ring Billed are very similar in size and appearance. The California is slightly larger, but even in mixed flocks size is not useful in separating the two. That being said, it is still very easy to tell the two apart by the markings on their bills. The California has a bright red spot on the lower mandible (equivalent to “jaw”, in animals) towards the tip followed by a black line just in front of the red spot; the Ring Billed has no red at all, just a black ring that goes completely around the bill as if somebody put a black elastic band around it to keep the bird quiet. (Sometimes one is tempted). When observing white headed gulls in the field, if there is red on the bill the gull is the California; if there is no red, the gull is the Ring Billed. For the very keen observers, if the red spot is not followed by a black line, then the gull is the much scarcer and larger Herring Gull. This gull is found along both coasts and across Canada on very large bodies of water, and the odds of seeing it here are very slim except during migration.
The Ring Billed is only moderately migratory flying only as far south as the nearest open body of water. Even though the Ring Billed can be found as far south as Mexico, it is a year round resident in Canada in extreme southern Ontario and the interior of southern British Columbia. Since it is so common anybody should be able to see and identify one with a minimum of effort and difficulty.