General Description: Adult Lesser Black-backed Gulls (Larus fuscus) are small gulls with a dark mantle with black wingtips (with small white spots), but otherwise the plumage is bright white. The legs and feet are yellow-orange, the bill is yellow-orange, and there is a red spot on the lower mandible bleeding onto the upper mandible. In winter plumage, adults get a gray wash on the head and neck. Juveniles are mottled dark gray with a black bill.

Gulls take 2-4 years to mature. The plumage during the juvenile and subadult years differs from the adult breeding plumage, and the plumage also differs between summer and winter. Thus, there can be 7 or so different plumages for each species of gull, making identification difficult. Lesser Black-backed Gulls take four years to mature.

Taxonomy: Charadriiformes, Laridae, Larinae.

Favored Habitat: Lesser Black-backed Gulls breed mostly in northern Europe and Asia. This species is, however, increasingly being seen in North America and are regular visitors to California and the Salton Sea. On rare occasions, they fly over to Lake Mead.

Where to Find: Lesser Black-backed Gulls are rare in the Las Vegas area. Check for them while birding at Lake Mead, but the luck is better at the Salton Sea.

Comments: The birds reaching North America are Larus fuscus graellsii, the subspecies found from Greenland to the British Isles and Western Europe. In this subspecies, the dark feathers on the back are dark, but not as dark as the wingtips. Other subspecies are even darker on the back.