Franklin's Gull

By Al Lowe
Contributor

This is another small, black-headed gull. It's not the smallest gull there is, but it's not far off. It is just about the size of a Green-wing Teal, one of our smallest ducks.
The mature bird, in breeding regalia, has a black hood. (Several gull species have this). It has slate-coloured wings, with a white bar, and black and white tips. The rest of its body is white, with tinges of pink. Really, quite a nice looking gull.
In the winter plumage, both males and females have a 'half-hood," from the eye back, and sort of grayish or mottled in colour. Beak is always dark red, and so are its legs.
This is not a 'sea' gull, at least not in the summer. It is a prairie bird. Years ago, it nested in huge colonies in all the prairie provinces, as well as Northwestern Ontario. Colonies of 50,000 birds were not uncommon, up to about a century ago.
These gulls like to make their nests in marshes. They often nest in floating masses of reeds and weeds, also in among the cat-tails and rushes. They build their nests so that the bottom is a few inches above the water level. If the pond or small lake dries up, they simply move, and the gigantic flock descends on some other soggy area.
Here's something a bit curious. The eggs vary in colour. Some are buff, some are green. Some are spotted a little, but others are very heavily streaked. They usually lay only* three eggs, and all of the wee chicks have pink feet.
The chicks are so small that they are very easily blown along the surface of the water. This bothers the old birds a lot, and then they try to get them back into the vegetation by squawking at them, and beating their wings. Finally, they will pick up the chicks and fling them towards the nests. They keep this up until all the babies are safe again. And it's not just the parent birds who do this - the whole colony gets in on it.
Another peculiarity is that the chicks often get into the wrong nests. The real parents don't seem to care, and the new ones, with maybe up to a dozen, take it all in their stride. Nobody seems to care!
The gulls do not live on marine things, or garbage, either. They live almost wholly on insects, and other small animals. They are especially fond of dragonfly nymphs, and water insects. And in ploughing time, they will follow a plough, hundreds of them. When grasshoppers descend on the prairies, so do the gulls. They catch insects on the wing, too.
Franklin's Gulls are very graceful birds, and they seem to be quite aware of that. They will gather in great numbers just to fly. And they do some tricky aerial exercises, too - seemingly just for fun.
In the fall, they gather in great flocks, and wander - just about anywhere. Their natural home is the prairies, east to Minnesota and Ontario, and west to about the BC border. Winter, however, finds them mostly on the west coast - Mexico, Peru & Chile. Very few go toward the Atlantic.
Franklin's Gull (Larus pipixcan) is one of our better looking small gulls. It was names after the famous English explorer, Sir John Franklin, who explored much of the Canadian Prairies.