The RED pins show Little Gull reports over the last thirty days (mid-March through April 12th, 2014), reflecting the interesting spread of this species over recent decades, including several seen in Long Island Sound this month....
Click on images to enlarge. Esc key or back arrow to return.
For those of you who like HISTORY, the 1947 edition of R.T.Peterson's "A Field Guide to the Birds" had the following information about Little Gulls (from my original marked-up copy.... one of the very few old bird books I still have)... It was so uncommon in the 1940s that Peterson asked Ludlow Griscom to guest-author the report, and Griscom described it as "European. An occasional straggler: in recent years of regular occurrence at favored spots on the coast of New England, Long Island, and the Great Lakes."....
In the 1940s even Ludlow Griscom considered Little Gull very rare. In John Bull's 1958 "The Birds of the New York City Area" Little Gull was still "Larus minutus" and its summary was, "From 1929 to about 1950, a very rare, but regular visitant from Europe to New York Harbor, most frequently in Spring, associating with Bonaparte's gulls. Now reported less frequently. Accidental elsewhere [in the NYC area]." I was ecstatic to see my first one off Ocean City, MD on a cold stormy May 1, 1964 (with G.Tudor, P.Post, M.Kleinbaum, and M.Gochfeld [who recently kindly sent me his old notes for this trip, since I had lost mine] and it was still quite rare in those days).
In 1990 "Connecticut Birds" by Zeranski and Baptist said that the Little Gull was first reported in CT on Feb 12, 1955 at Guilford and first confirmed on June 20, 1968 when a female was collected at Stratford. The species was regionally considered an accidental winter visitor before 1960. Since the late 1960s it has been reported virtually annually in CT.
In the last fifty years we have had quite an increase in Little Gulls in North America. Recently, for example, Keith Mueller got these photographs of Little Gulls in CT this week...
including Keith's killer-photos of this tiny beauty....
plus here are some beautiful photos which Frank Mantlik took....
and a week earlier Mike Berzenski and Mona Cavallero took this very enjoyable video on April 6th at Short Beach, Stratford, CT...
Little Gull - YouTube <<<click here
Southport, CT. In mid-April 2014 areas A, B and E were best for Bonaparte's Gulls. Area A was best for the Little Gulls.
The online Birds of North America provides an excellent account of Little Gull...
Little Gull — Birds of North America Online <<click here to see public info & subscribe for more
The BNA report includes the following text...
"The smallest gull worldwide, the Little Gull breeds in small numbers in North America but its main range is in the Palearctic. It now occurs regularly in small numbers along the eastern seaboard of the U.S. and on the Great Lakes, and it appears to breed mostly in the Great Lakes basin and in Canadian wetlands further north, usually near Common Terns (Sterna hirundo), Black Terns (Chlidonias niger), Forster’s Terns (S. forsteri), or Ross’s Gulls (Rhodostethia rosea). Although numbers are generally increasing in North America, few breeding locations are known.
The origin of Little Gulls in North America is something of a mystery. Some think that the species has always occurred here, albeit in small numbers. Others believe that it colonized via the Bering Sea, while many support the idea of one or more transatlantic colonizations from western Europe (reinforced by the recent return of a Swedish-banded chick in its first summer in Pennsylvania). The first documented nesting of this species in North America was not until 1962, on Lake Ontario, although the first recorded continental record was in 1819–1820, on the Franklin expedition (Houston 1998). As of 1999 only 67 confirmed and probable nestings have been documented in North America, and these have occurred mainly in wetlands in the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence River basin, and the lowlands of Hudson and James Bays."
And in 2013 Nisbet, Veit, Auer and White said about Little Gulls, "The north american population has been estimated as 50-100 pairs... It apparently colonized North America in the 1930s, but this is poorly documented because there were few observers in the likely breeding areas. ... Veit and Petersen (1993) reported possible breeding in coastal Massachusetts in 1980 (a juvenile begging from an adult) and 1982 (a territorial pair)."
What a wonderful little addition to North American fauna.
