Gull. Sooty

Conservation status:

Passage Migrant

Description:

Distinctive, medium-sized gull with dark sooty brown hood and ‘bib’, dark grey-brown upperparts and wings, dark flanks and underwings (white trailing edge) and narrow white half-collar. Long, thick, straight bill distinctly bi-coloured at all ages (in adult yellow-green with black band near red tip; in young pale blue-grey with black tip). Narrow white crescent above eye (and seldom below) at all ages. Immature brownish grey on head, breast and flanks; upperparts brownish with buff feather-edges and tail has broad, black band. Rather long-winged with steady flight; at distance over sea can be mistaken for a Skua; sometimes piratical on other gulls.