Black-tailed Gulls
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The Black-tailed Gull (Larus crassirostris) is a medium-sized (46cm) gull. It's wingspan measures 126-128 cm. The bird is resident in East Asia, including China, Japan and Korea. It is a vagrant to Alaska and northeastern North America.
It has yellow legs and a red and black spot at the end of the bill. This gull takes 4 years to reach full adult plumage. As the name suggests, it has a black tail. The bird has a cat-like call, giving it its Japanese name — Umineko, "Sea cat" and Korean name — Gwaeng-yi gull, which means "cat" gull.
The Black-tailed Gull feeds mainly on small fish, molluscs, crustaceans and offal. It often follows ships and commercial fishing fleets. It does steal food from other seabirds.
It is a colonial nester, with colonies forming in mid-April. 2-3 eggs are laid by early June. Incubation lasts approximately 24 days.
A rare visitor to the United States, a black-tailed gull was spotted from Burlington, Vermont, in October of 2005.
Copyright: Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from Wikipedia.org
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