Red-billed Gull

This pearly grey and white gull has boldly patterned black and white wing tips. The short bill is deep bright red, the legs and feet are red and the eye is white. The call is a high pitched, raucous ‘scrark’.

The diet is varied and includes small fish, molluscs, insects, earthworms, eggs, offal, refuse, carrion and marine invertebrates.

Red-billed gulls breed between October and December in large densely packed colonies on sand spits, boulder banks, shellbanks, gravel beaches, rocky headlands and rocky islets. The nest, built mostly by the male with only a small input from the female, is composed of dry grass, seaweed, twigs and feathers. It is a small mound with a depression in the centre. The two or more brownish coloured heavily blotched eggs are incubated by both parents for 24–27 days. The chicks fledge at 37 days but remain dependent on their parents for a further 3 weeks. Immature birds have brown bills, legs and eyes, and brown patches on their backs; adult plumage develops in the second year.

There is a breeding colony of several hundred red-billed gulls on the east side of Tiritiri Matangi.

Learn more about red-billed gulls at New Zealand Birds Online.

Photography by: Dr Kerry Rodgers © (right) and Max McRae © (left)

References: Heather, B.D.; Robertson, H.A. 2000 The Field Guide to the Birds of New Zealand. Auckland, Viking. Moon, G The Reed Field Guide to New Zealand Birds.