| Comments: Photos taken at Schoolhouse Pond in Upper Marlboro, Prince George's County, Maryland (12/18/2004). This attractive bird is in non-breeding plumage, as Black-headed Gulls are rare-but-annual winter visitors to this area.
They breed primarily in Europe and central Asia, and range from northeastern North America and southern Greenland to northeastern China. Many winter in Africa, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Numbers of this species have risen in North America since the 1950s,
and there are now breeding colonies in northeastern Canada. The earliest breeding record I could find for North America was from 1977. (With Ring-billed Gulls in top photo.) |
