Seagulls Don't Exist

That white and grey bird with yellow legs, squawking for your French fries? Not a seagull.

The patch of birds on the pier, chiming "Mine! Mine!" Not seagulls.

The majestic bird, diving head first for a fish: not a seagull.

If you aren't near the sea, you might as well call them baygulls because even though everyone talks about "seagulls," they're not a type of bird—not a genus, family, order, or class of birds—they simply don't exist. What we're actually seeing are several kinds of birds in the order Larus. In any one place, you're probably looking at a dozen different species! Some of them aren't gulls at all, but terns whose squawking flocks can seat terror in your chest. 

How Many Not-Seagulls Are There?

Point to a seagull and you might be misnaming a

• herring gull
• ring-billed gull
• tern
• kittiwake

Search online for "types of gulls" and you'll see pictures of dozens of different kinds. There are 58 species and subspecies in all.

Seagull Sorting Tips

If you're keen to give a gull its proper name, there are tips for identifying them: size, beak colour or pattern, eye patches, and the colour of their wing-tips are key clues. But don't get too confident! Alts happen between individuals just like they happen between humans, and head and leg colour depend on age, winter vs summer, and whether or not they're breeding right then.

Where you are in the world can help narrow down which types of gulls you're probably looking at, but that doesn't stop birds from passing through unusual areas because they're migrating, blown off course, adjusting to changing climate, or maybe just curious. Your quest will be a long one!

Gull ID is something birders either avoid or get really caught up in. Even a book called Gulls Simplified is 208 pages long! Maybe that's why we call them all seagulls.

Accessing Shared Research Websites for Free!

One of the best things about doing research for my science books is finding resources online that are useful for surprising varieties of book projects.

For instance, when writing about a French explorer from 1790, it's important to be historically accurate. It was wonderful to find a website for the David Rumsey Map Collection, which has over 150,000 historical maps from the 16th century through to the 21st century. There are the maps I needed. There are explorers' maps as well as present-day geological surveys, subway diagrams, and topographical charts galore. This Webby Award-winning website even has a Children's Maps section with over 200 examples!

Another project I'm working on is about my own family history. There are so many useful things to be found on Canadiana. This website has three digital libraries for anyone who is interested in Canada's history in documents. The first is Canadiana Online, which has over 1.7 million pages of historical government publications, as well as a wide range of newspapers and journals, and historical writings. The second is Heritage, which is a program to make accessible some of Canada's most popular archival collections, with sections on military history, genealogy, aboriginal history, and more. Early Canadiana is the third digital library, with full texts of books, magazines, and government documents. So far I've found relatives listed on Canada's 1921 census, and am looking through military records. The best part? As of January 1,  2019, access is free and all content is available with no charge to users.

It seems trivial to be learning about seagulls, but there are so many of them near my island home, and I'd like to know more about them. Some fly here from far away, some live here all the time. And now there's a Gull Identification Guide that I've downloaded.
There's no need to print it out to take to the beach. The important facts are basic: most gulls look pretty similar, and the young gulls are dark grey instead of white with grey wings. As the author John Muir Laws says, "The subtle distinctions between species sometimes do not even matter to the gulls themselves." Even gulls don't worry who is a herring gull and who is a glaucous-winged gull, so I won't either. But I will take time to look at the rest of his website on Nature Stewardship Through Science, Education, and Art. His drawings are wonderful and he has some terrific blog posts on sketching natural objects!