Ring-billed Gull

The Ring-billed Gull is a medium-sized, highly successful gull found across North America, equally comfortable on ocean coastlines, inland lakes, and parking lots and landfills far from any water at all.

Adults have a pale gray back and upperwings, black wingtips with small white spots, a white head and body, and — as the name suggests — yellow legs and a yellow bill encircled by a distinct black ring near the tip, a diagnostic feature that separates it from most other gulls at any distance.

Key field marks

• Yellow legs (a key distinction from the pink-legged Herring Gull)
• Yellow bill with a black ring near the tip — diagnostic
• Pale gray mantle and black wingtips with white spots
• Medium size, notably smaller than Herring Gull
• Bright yellow eye with a red orbital ring in adults

Similar species

• Herring Gull: larger, with pink legs and a red (not black-ringed) spot on the bill.
• California Gull (western North America): darker eye, red and black markings on the bill rather than a single black ring, slightly larger.
• Mew Gull: smaller, more delicate bill lacking the strong black ring.

Habitat

Ring-billed Gulls are extremely adaptable, commonly found at inland lakes, rivers, farm fields, parking lots, landfills, and fast-food restaurant lots, as well as along ocean coastlines — more so than most other gull species.

Range and migration

They breed colonially across much of interior and coastal North America, including the Great Lakes and prairie lakes. Many populations migrate south for winter, when they become especially common and conspicuous in urban and suburban areas across much of the continental United States.

Behavior

Ring-billed Gulls are bold, adaptable, and highly tolerant of humans, often gathering in large numbers around parking lots, dumpsters, and picnic areas to scavenge food, and are among the most familiar "seagulls" to people who rarely visit the coast.

Voice

Calls include a shrill, high-pitched "kyow" and various chattering notes, generally higher-pitched than the deeper calls of the Herring Gull.

Feeding

Their diet is highly varied and opportunistic, including fish, insects, earthworms, and a large proportion of human food scraps in urban settings, along with agricultural pests taken from farm fields.

Nesting and breeding

Ring-billed Gulls nest in large, dense colonies, often on islands in lakes or rivers; both parents share incubation of the typically three-egg clutch and feeding of the chicks, which fledge after several weeks.