First-year immature Iceland Gull, center left foreground
The pretty white gull was on the last remnant of ice at Niles Pond yesterday morning, preening and bathing alongside a mixed flock of Great Black-backed and Herring Gulls. Although doing his/her best to blend with the other gulls, he appeared to be playing with a feather blowing around on the ice.
I wonder who amongst our readers has seen an Iceland Gull, and where it was spotted. Please write and let us know. Thank you!
Iceland Gulls are most often only seen in our region during the winter. Despite their name, they do not breed in Iceland, but in the high Arctic and Greenland. Their diet consists of fish, marine vertebrates, carrion, some terrestrial and aquatic plants, and berries during the late summer.
I wished I could have gotten closer to get a better photo, but if you scroll through the following pdf, written by Dick Coombs, you’ll find an excellent description of a 1st-winter immature Iceland Gull, just like the one at Niles, along with photos of a mature Iceland Gull: http://www.southdublinbirds.com/nimages/fyles/IDofIceland&GlaucousGulls-print(DC).pdf
Niles Pond foliage readying to burst
Good Morning Gloucester 
Very impressive. You have a great eye. I dont think I would have noticed a new guy on the beach!
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I kept looking at him, trying to decide, he was so far away, but the all whitetail feathers were a good clue 🙂
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One very large happy family here out on the beautiful Niles pond…Great observation and we mere mortals can lean so much by observing other’s on the path of life! 🙂 Dave & Kim 🙂
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As one neighbor refers to them as “the Committee”
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Indeed they are seem to get along fine too! 🙂 Dave
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