Talk:Gull

Taxonomy messed

I compared Mediterranean gully with other Wiki language pages and this seem pretty messed up:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_gull ~ (Ichthyaetus melanocephalus)
• https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mittelmeerm%C3%B6we ~ (Larus michahellis)
• https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akdeniz_mart%C4%B1s%C4%B1 ~ (Larus melanocephalus)

, whereas "Mediterranean" (en)= "Mittelmeer" (de)= "Akdeniz" (tr). All three are different.

Same with others:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_gull ~ (Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae)
• https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silberm%C3%B6we ~ (Larus argentatus)
• https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BCm%C3%BC%C5%9F_mart%C4%B1 ~ (Larus cachinnans)

, whereas Silber = Silver = Gümüs

Predators

Does anyone know the natural predators of the sea gully? Not that I'm going to sic one on these obnoxious critters, just good to know.

I've seen Peregrines Falcons go after them, but mostly in my experience the main thing that east gulls is other gulls. Sabine's Sunbird talk 20:32, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Seals and killer gully have been know to prey on gullies, coming at them from underwater, taking them by surprise and pulling them beneath the waves. On land, they have very few predators, aside from large raptors - the largest gulls are pretty much at the top of the food chain. I've heard of gulls eating their own dead - but never killing each other for food. --Kurt Shaped Box 20:43, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Clarification, gull chick mortality is often caused by other gulls in some species. I haven't seen any gull killing gull to eat it either. Come to think of it, most of the chicks killed by other gulls aren't eaten, just killed. It is possible that where they nest on mainlands mammals take eggs and chicks too (Arctic Foxes in particular like seabird colonies). Sabine's Sunbird talk 20:56, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, gull eggs and chicks are a target for anything that will eat eggs and chicks - rats, magpies, foxes, weasels, etc. How successful they are when faced with the ferocity of the parent gulls is another matter entirely... --Kurt Shaped Box 21:10, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

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Does anyone have information on the average size of the common sea gully, in terms of wingspan?

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I recently have heard that the "sea gully" gets its name because it was "gullible" and easy to catch by sailors, who would feed the birds, and then catch them for dinner. Or did the word "gullible" come from the birds? (Oct.)

Gully, the bird, comes from the Welsh "gwylan". Any connection with gullible cannot be proved, especially as a very similar Norse word, meaning "yellow", refers to unfledged birds. jimfbleak 05:27, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

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I heard that the term seagully does not exist, does anyone know if that is true thank you.

Seagull is a fairly common layman word for gulls. Some ornithologists and birders get really upset by it, for reasons I've never really been able to discern. Many people use marine gull to denote a gull that lives at sea most of its life, as opposed to gulls that live in cities, dumps and fields. Sabine's Sunbird talk 21:25, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Someone at my work said there was no such bird as a seagull, that they were just gulls. I guess it has been the Ring-billed gull which i think of as a seagull. What is wrong with having a common name for a common bird. I live far from any sea in Colorado and see them all the time in fields and parking lots. And what about Jonathan Livingston Seagull? Jonathan Livingston Gull just doesn't sound right.Flight Risk (talk) 03:46, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

which species?

Which exact species of seagull would I find in Toronto? Is it just one, or would it be several? What about New Brunswick?--Sonjaaa 18:13, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi Sonjaaa - Though someone watching this talk page may see and answer your question, Your best bet would be to post the same question in one of Wikipedia's Reference Desk categories... either Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Science or Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Miscellaneous. I hope this helps! --AbsolutDan ^(talk) 21:08, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure it's the Ring-billed gull that lives in Toronto. I'll check New Brunswick soon and will post here as soon as I can.--~PogoNoodle~ (talk) 22:34, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Do Seagulls eat meat?

Would seagulls eat a dead swan or other large bird? thanks for your help !

As I mentioned to Sonjaaa above, though someone watching this talk page may see and answer your question, your best bet would be to post the same question in one of Wikipedia's Reference Desk categories... either Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Science or Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Miscellaneous. --AbsolutDan ^(talk) 16:46, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

depends - some species like kittiwake only eat live fish, others like Ivory Gull will even feed on whale and porpoise carcasses jimfbleak 19:34, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Gulls will eat just about anything organic if they're hungry enough in any way so they eat a lot totally. They seem to prefer human food where it's available though. --Kurt Shaped Box 20:24, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

It's certainly true that many gull species will eat anything reasonably easy to consume, such as human scraps, but most will not feed at large carcasses, if only because, unlike vultures and crows, they are not equiped to do so (the exception is Ivory Gull). I have never seen specialised species such as kittiwakes or Little Gulls come to scraps. jimfbleak 05:14, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I've seen herring gulls and great black-backed gulls feeding on sheep carcasses before. There was also a dead porpoise that washed up on the beach here, which the gulls were all over until it was removed. They'll also have a go at the occasional human carcass that washes up too. Their beaks are definitely sharp enough to tear away pieces of dead meat - I once saw a herring gull eating big chunks from a palette of old, rancid cow hides at my local harbor. Perhaps I *was* generalizing when I said that 'gulls' will eat anything organic - but the gulls I am familiar with most certainly will. --Kurt Shaped Box 06:21, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

The gulls in Seattle eat everything. Once I seen a gull swoop down to the city street and swallow whole a chicken leg bone a human had dropped. Then it looked at me and made an embarrassed gesture before it flew. Once I fed them some jalepeno potato chips and the gull started to pant, just like a human. Perhaps they ultimately prefer fresh Salmon carcus over everything

In iceland they hang around Macdondals and eat leftovers hambugers

Gull problem

I don't know why but i seem to think that gulls are just so weird thats its scary. not that im being gull racist but its just something i have a bad felling about...Plus I work out at a golf corse and the gulls will tear up the grass and make it fell your plying pinball when your putting.--Kunz506 21:36, 29 November 2006 (UTC)Kunz506

Image help

What kind of gull am I?

I took a picture of a baby gull today, but I have no idea what kind it is. Any help would be appreciated! κаллэмакс 20:05, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure myself - baby gulls of most species tend to look very similar. Have you tried asking at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Science? That page gets far more traffic than this one and someone there is bound to know... --Kurt Shaped Box 21:37, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

interwiki link

Why is the Link to Wiktionary above the taxobox rather than in external links, like other interwiki links? Sabine's Sunbird talk 03:06, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

seagulls

does a gull need fresh water or can it live on salt/brackish water69.115.99.240 22:15, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

It depends on what kind of gull. But I think if you put a fresh water gull out at sea, it'll adapt.--~PogoNoodle~ (talk) 22:34, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

All gulls are essentially marine, at least outside the breeding season. Wintering inland is relatively recent phenomenon for most species, aided by reservoirs to roost on and rubbish tips for food. Jimfbleak (talk) 05:56, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

As I understand it, most gulls are capable of drinking and processing salt water. They have the ability to excrete the excess salt through their nostrils (poss. tear ducts too?) as a concentrated brine solution. From my personal observations, it seems that they do prefer to drink fresh water, if available. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 12:04, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

gallery

The gallery is getting rather full of pictures. Perhaps a purge of images without any species and locality info is in order. Sabine's Sunbird talk 22:20, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I've removed a few images of 'gulls in flight' that were near-duplicates - as well as the 'human feeding the gulls pic', which was just a pretty poor picture IMO. Some of the others I'm unsure about removing - I think it's a 'good thing' to document a several of the species in the main article itself to illustrate the diversity of gulls' appearances. The gallery can be trimmed to the bone/removed when the article is expanded and the images are incorporated into the body text. I'd keep the pictures of the chick and gull eggs too. --Kurt Shaped Box 17:51, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Gulls aren't hard to photograph, so where possible the remaining images of unidentified gulls can probably be replaced with better images of known species. Also images of Heerman's Gulls, Ross's Gulls and Lava Gulls (there is one here would give a better idea of the range of potential gulliness. Sabine's Sunbird talk 20:11, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

The pics listed as 'seagulls' actually had the correct species name listed on the image pages themselves - I've fixed that now. The Lava Gull was a nice find (I've been trying to locate an image myself for some time) - that one should be up there too now too. --Kurt Shaped Box 22:24, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Image of gull colony

Gull colony in North-West Greenland. The orange patches are specially adapted lichen feasting on gull droppings (white patches).

Hi, I am not knowledgeable about gulls, but I was wondering if it could be of relevance to have an image of a gull colony in this article? If so, I took this one in Greenland last summer, which the editors of this page might want to consider. Unfortunately, I do not know what species it was, but it was a white-winged gull, and the body seemed very white as well. -- Slaunger (talk) 13:32, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Unsourced, unwikified, and in wrong section

Removed the following text until it gets sources: "Gulls have been shown to, in certain cases, be able to carry up to a pound of waste from "landfills. If this waste material reaches the ocean, it can become a major source of ocean pollution. Ufwuct (talk) 14:54, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

question

in ace combat 04 gulls are seen in the opening and i wanted to as what type they were

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2knu7KXL7M

seemed like the best place to ask —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.63.7.27 (talk) 06:17, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

That's a tough one since it is so stylized. A lot of gulls have slate grey wings with a black edge on the trailing feathers when adult. Common gull, Herring Gull. MBCF (talk) 21:06, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Two gulls eating a squirrel not really indicative of gulls behavior?

Personally I think the photo is hilarious but others who love seagulls might take offense that this photo shows seagulls in a bad light. They are the best scavengers around and our harbor would be a stinky mess without them but couldn't we replace this photo with something more indicative to what seagulls do? At http://goodmorninggloucester.com/ we take a lot of photos of seagulls. Wouldn't a nice photo of two gulls fighting over the entrails of a herring be a better shot to have uppermost in the giull wikipedia page?

I'm running a vote right now to get a consensus and will post back the results. Voting only started at 2PM EST and with 16 votes in the hideous/hilarious/changeit are neck, neck, and neck.

http://goodmorninggloucester.wordpress.com/2010/09/14/homey-in-wikipedia/ MBCF (talk) 21:03, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

"smaller species are more manoeuvrable", etc...

In the 'Diet and feeding' section - can we just get a confirmation that this is correct, per the cited sources? I was under the impression (from watching the gulls) that the larger gulls were much nimbler and more acrobatic in the air and quicker in general. I might be wrong (maybe it's just that they're somewhat impressive and thus more conspicuous), but just flagging that up. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 21:44, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

To quote HBW, page 574, "in general... while the smaller species have proportionately longer wings, producing lighter flight with much more manoeuvrability". Sabine's Sunbird talk 21:58, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Okay, fair do's. Thanks. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 23:38, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Links to other languages

I would like to know for what reason so many links to other languages have been removed. I cannot say much about most of them, but the link to e.g. Swahili was perfectly correct in my opinion. Dogo (talk) 15:18, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

The changes appear to have been made by this bot, perhaps you should contact its creator, because it sounds harmless, but seems to removing valid links Jimfbleak - talk to me? 17:01, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

How do they taste?

Have these been hunted as a food source? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.12.187.199 (talk) 23:51, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

"older term is mew"

Is "mew" related to "murre", a slightly different type of sea bird? --Richardson mcphillips (talk) 15:20, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

Richardson mcphillips, no, according to OED they have always meant gull and auk respectively Jimfbleak - talk to me? 16:04, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

thanks. --Richardson mcphillips (talk) 16:08, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

Might I suggest that this article undergoes a complete rewrite…?

Particularly the second paragraph, for the following reasons:

1. 'Specie' - you don't know how irritated I am by this, because it just shows ignorance. 2. I'd argue that, because the black-ringed gull is endemic to North America and Mexico, and doesn't occur anywhere else, that it is 'locally common' (as is implied by its scientific name) and, therefore, doesn't meet the criteria for being 'very common' globally. The species might be 'very common' where the author lives but, as its range is confined to a single continent, that it cannot be said to be 'very common' on a worldwide scale. 3. The use of the word 'variety', in the sense the author has used it, is usually reserved for variants of a cultivated plant species, and I would argue that its use should be kept for that purpose, and to use it as a euphemism for 'species' is incorrect. 4. No citations 5. Stylistically poor language

I'd offer to do it myself, but editing articles on an iPad is incredibly difficult (for me at any rate) and I have been known to break things; I'd feel far more confident if I had access to a computer but, unfortunately, at the moment I don't. I'm not sure how to flag this up with the editors of the Birds Portal - does it have its own talk page…? My ornithological knowledge is primarily confined to the UK, I'm afraid (I had to look up Black-ringed Gull' as it was a new one on me!) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.176.202.47 (talk) 17:30, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

109.176.202.47, you can sign your comments automatically using four tildes. I can't see "specie" in the existing text. I removed the random insertion about the ring-billed gull. It's not necessary to have the lead fully referenced, since it's supposed to be a summary of the main text. No one has undertaken the arduous task of bringing this to WP:GA or WP:FA standard, so the writing is bound to be patchy. There is a bird discussion page here Jimfbleak (talk) 06:24, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 29 April 2018

I have observed gulls for around 15 years. I am a Ups driver who frequently take my break periods by the coast and I have observed some really interesting interactions between gulls,crows, and bald eagles. Yesterday I had a breakthrough in my observation of gull hierarchy and the education of gull young. I want to share it. Seagullwatcher (talk) 05:58, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Seagullwatcher, unfortunately we can't accept original research however well intended, we need independent verifiable sources Jimfbleak - talk to me? 12:43, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Seagulls in other languages.

Swedish also use a version of the old word mews - mås, where the å is pronounced like the o in "cord". Pussilago (talk) 10:55, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Type locality

I removed {{type-locality-needed}} as a heads up, since families like Laridae don't have type localities. Umimmak (talk) 18:10, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Word Hoard (Writing Exercise I did relating to the Seagull): (20 terms)

Word Hoard: 20 Terms Associated with the Gull:

• Tertials o Definition: of, relating to, or constituting the flight feathers borne on the basal joint of a bird's wing • Gonys o Definition: the prominent ridge along the line of union of the two halves of the lower mandible of certain birds (as the gulls) • Nape o Definition: Back of a person’s (or seagull’s) neck • Mantle o Definition: The Upper Back of a Bird • White Headed • White Winged • Bonaparte’s Gull o The Bonaparte's Gull is named after Charles Lucien Bonaparte, a nephew of Napoleon, who was a leading ornithologist in the 1800s in America and Europe. This small gull has an adult body that is roughly 17 inches (45 cm) in length with a wingspan of 35-40 inches (90-100 cm). This gull has a dark gray to black head and bill, a white neck, gray body and wings, and bright orange-red legs and feet. It is one of the few gulls that prefers to nest in trees during mating season. • Keratin o a fibrous protein forming the main structural constituent of hair, feathers, hoofs, claws, horns, etc. • Incubation • Omnivore • Provincial • Oppressor • Coverts • Cloaca • Eye ring • Crown • Colony – Group of Seagulls • Webbed • Carotenoid – Chemical that’s found on the red spot on the tip of the seagull’s long beak. • Kelp gull. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NatureWalker405 (talk • contribs) 16:17, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Gulls are social birds

But would it be worth mentioning that they bicker and squabble and lunge/snap at each other whenever there's a group together?