Hemprich's Gull

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Hemprich's Gull
Hemprich's gull in the second winter

Hemprich's gull in the second winter

Systematics
Class : Birds (aves)
Order : Plover-like (Charadriiformes)
Family : Laridae
Subfamily : Seagulls (larinae)
Genre : Ichthyaetus
Type : Hemprich's Gull
Scientific name
Ichthyaetus hemprichii
( Bruch , 1853)
Hemprich's gulls (in the foreground), behind them, among others, Rüppellseeschwalben and Herring gull on the coast of Salala in Oman
Flying Hemprich's Gulls with Great Gulls ( Larus sp.)
Hemprichmöwe (Oman)
Hemprich's gull in flight (Oman)

The Hemprichmöwe ( Ichthyaetus hemprichii , Syn . : Larus hemprichii ) is a species of gulls . This medium-sized, mostly sooty brown seagull breeds on the shores of the Red Sea , Persian Gulf, and Indian Ocean in the south of the Arabian Peninsula , east of equatorial Africa, and possibly Pakistan.

The specific epithet honors the German naturalist Friedrich Wilhelm Hemprich .

description

The Hemprichmöwe is 42–45 cm long and has a wingspan of 105–118 cm, about the same size as a common gull . It looks stocky when seated and has a relatively large head with a flat parting and a large, almost oversized-looking beak. The wings are long and slender, the flight appears serene with slow, elastic flaps like a great gull. Due to the color, the species is somewhat reminiscent of a sku . The wing length of adult animals is between 320 and 362 mm, the beak length between 42 and 52 mm, the weight between 400 and 640 g. Females are a bit smaller and lighter, but otherwise do not differ from the males. The difference between winter and summer dress is not very pronounced. Young Hemprich's gulls are fully colored in their third winter. There are no subspecies.

Adult birds

In adult Hemprich's gulls in their splendid plumage , the head is sooty, dark brown, the lids are white, but the lower one is often very narrow and barely recognizable. The iris is brown, the eye is surrounded by a narrow red to orange ring. The beak is yellowish to greenish yellow, the tip is red and a subterminal , about 20 mm wide band is black. The throat shows a red-orange color. The dark color of the head extends as a bib on the front neck and is set off from the gray-brown back by a white, often very narrow neck band at the back. The chest and flanks are also gray-brown. The rest of the underside is white. The cover plumage of the arm wings is gray-brown like the upper side, that of the hand wing is black. The black wings have white tips, so that the rear edge of the wing appears white in flight. When the wing is folded, this seam is often only indistinctly visible. The underside of the wing is brown. The rump and control feathers are white. The coloring of the legs and feet is yellowish and often plays slightly green.

In the winter dress the color of the head is lighter and corresponds to that of the top. The chin and throat are partly interspersed with white feathers. The neck band is narrower or not present, light grayish and set off from the back by a blackish hem. The bill and feet are less colorful.

Youth dress

In the youth dress, the head and top are pale brown to beige, the dark eyes stand out clearly from it. Neck and shoulder plumage, like the umbrella feathers and the upper wing coverts, are lined with whitish. On the wings, the white tips of the middle and large arm covers appear as light bands. The wings are dark, but already show the white tips and thus the white rear edge of the wing. The rump, upper tail-coverts and the bases of the control feathers stand out as a wide, white field from the black, subterminal tail band. The bill and legs including the feet are gray, the latter a little lighter. The beak tip, which is two-colored in adult animals, is completely black.

Immature birds

In the first winter, the light-colored hems on the upper back and shoulders wear off, so that they appear solid-colored, matt brown. The first summer dress already shows features of the second winter dress, in which, in contrast to the adult winter dress, there is a narrow, black tail band, the wings are darker and narrower and tipped in white and the plumage of the head hardly separates from the top. The latter is less colored and often interspersed with lighter brown feathers. The tip of the beak is still black, the beak and legs are paler overall. In the second summer, the head is already darker, the neck band is grayer than in adult animals and the beak is greenish in color.

Distribution, existence and phenology

The Hemprich's Gull breeds on the coasts of the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean southwards along the East African coast to Kenya . The species is also found on Socotra . In Asia, the area extends eastward to the edge of the Indian subcontinent in Pakistan. However, the breeding occurrences there have not recently been confirmed.

The world population is estimated at 50,000 to 100,000 breeding pairs, the species is not considered endangered by the IUCN . In Arabia there are two known breeding colonies with 5000 pairs each, in the Persian Gulf there are around 100–120 and in the Gulf of Aden 50–100 breeding pairs. In Kenya there are around 50-100 breeding pairs resident. The breeding season is between April and October.

Between September and November, the distribution in the Indian Ocean extends from southern Arabia to Mozambique , the species is then often found in the open sea and in fishing ports. The population in the Red Sea appears to be resident birds .

literature

  • Klaus Malling Olsen, Hans Larsson: Gulls of Europe, Asia and North America. Helm Identification Guides, Christopher Helm, London 2003, ISBN 978-0-7136-7087-5 (corrected new edition from 2004).
  • JM Pons, A. Hassanin, PA Crochet: Phylogenetic relationships within the Laridae (Charadriiformes: Aves) inferred from mitochondrial markers. In: Molecular phylogenetics and evolution. 37 (3), 2005, pp. 686-699.
  • GS Tuck, H. Heinzel: The sea birds of the world. Paul Parey Publishing House, Hamburg / Berlin 1980, ISBN 3-490-07818-7 .
  • L. Svensson, PJ Grant, K. Mullarney, D. Zetterström: The new cosmos bird guide. Kosmos, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-440-07720-9 , pp. 176-177.

Web links

Commons : Hemprichmöwe ( Ichthyaetus hemprichii )  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Single receipts

  1. ↑ Bo Beolens, Michael Watkins: Whose Bird? Men and Women Commemorated in the Common Names of Birds . Christopher Helm, London 2003, ISBN 0-7136-6647-1 , pp. 205 .