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SILVER GULL
IDENTIFICATION: A medium-sized (16 inch) gull with gray back and wings; spotted black-and- white wing tips; bright red bill and legs; white iris. DISTRIBUTION: Australia, New Zealand, New Caledonia. HABITAT: Coasts, lakes, islands. STUDY AREA: Kaikoura Peninsula, New Zealand; subspecies
HERRING GULL
IDENTIFICATION: Similar to Silver Gull except larger (2 feet long), legs pinkish, bill yellow with a red spot, and iris yellow. DISTRIBUTION: North America, western Europe, Siberia; winters in Central America, N. Africa, southern Asia. HABITAT: Coasts, bays, lakes, rivers. STUDY AREAS: Gull Island National Wildlife Refuge, Lake Michigan; numerous other island locations in Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, and the Straits of Mackinac; Bird Island, Memmert, Germany; subspecies
Social Organization
Silver and Herring Gulls are usually found in flocks of several hundreds or thousands; they generally form monogamous pair-bonds and nest in colonies containing anywhere from several hundred to tens of thousands of nests.
Description
Females in same-sex pairs usually build nests and lay eggs. Silver Gull homosexual females generally begin nesting at a younger age than heterosexual females: females paired to other females start on average about a year earlier than females paired to males, and 11 percent of homosexual females begin nesting when they are two years old (heterosexual females never begin this early). Since both females lay eggs, nests belonging to same-sex pairs often have double or more the number of eggs found in nests of heterosexual pairs. These SUPERNORMAL CLUTCHES contain 4 or more eggs in Silver Gulls (compared to 2 eggs for male-female pairs) and 5—7 eggs in Herring Gulls (compared to 3 eggs for heterosexual pairs). Females sometimes mate nonmonogamously with males—or are raped by them (see below)—while still remaining paired to their female partner. Consequently, some of the eggs laid by female pairs are fertile—about a third in Silver Gulls, and 4—30 percent in Herring Gulls. Homosexual parents often successfully hatch these eggs and raise the chicks. Approximately 3—4 percent of all Silver Gull chicks are raised by same-sex pairs, and a further 9 percent of chicks are raised by male-female pairs in which the mother is bisexual. Overall, 7 percent of birds that go on to become breeding adults in this species come from families with two female parents. However, homosexual and bisexual females generally produce fewer offspring during their lifetimes than do heterosexual females.
In both Silver and Herring Gulls, males in heterosexual pairs often try to copulate with birds other than their mates, and in some cases they mount other males. Like females who are mounted by birds other than their mate, male Herring Gulls may respond aggressively to another male’s mounting them.