Sabine's Gull
Photo · Alaska Region U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service from Anchorage, United States

BirdUp · Species

Sabine's Gull

Xema sabini(Sabine, 1819)

Native
Order
CHARADRIIFORMES
Family
Laridae
Genus
Xema
Commonness
Local
Best seen
Summer

01 · Identification

How to tell it apart

Sabine's gull is a small gull. It is usually treated as the only species placed in the genus Xema, though some authors include it with other gulls in a wide view of the genus Larus. It has also been known historically as fork-tailed gull or xeme. It breeds in colonies on arctic coasts and tundra, laying two or three spotted olive-brown eggs in a ground nest lined with grass. Sabine's gull is pelagic outside the breeding season. It takes a wide variety of mainly animal food, and will eat any suitable small prey.

Description · wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

02 · Where

Where to find it

Breeding range
PAL, NA : patchily on Arctic coasts of north-west and east Greenland, Svalbard (north of Norway), north-east Siberia from Taimyr Pen. to Wrangel I. (north of Chukotka Pen.) and Gulf of Anadyr (east Chukotka Pen.; north-east Russia); St. Lawrence I. (north Bering Sea), west and north Alaska and Arctic Canada
Non-breeding range
Coastal and offshore waters of north South America to north Chile and west Africa from Angola to south and south-east Africa

03 · When

When to look

Months this species is recorded across its Australian range.

  1. Jan
  2. Feb
  3. Mar
  4. Apr
  5. May
  6. Jun
  7. Jul
  8. Aug
  9. Sep
  10. Oct
  11. Nov
  12. Dec

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