Oklahoma Vagrants: Sabine's Gull

Sabine's Gull is a small, tern-like gull that nests on inland tundra ponds, lakes or rivers.  It can easily be confused with a juvenile Kittiwake.  Its normal breeding area is along coastal Alaska and the High Arctic Boreal Forest coastal waterways.  This migratory bird has a normal migratory pattern of Atlantic and Pacific waterway flight, guided by wind.  Rarely in the company of other gulls, it will remain solitary or among a handful of its own species.





                              Sabine's Gull
       Great Salt Plains NWR by Joe Grzybowski
                                   100618

This small gull has pointed long, thin wings and a black bill with a yellow tip, and is very graceful in flight.  Known as the fork-tailed gull, this unusual gull breeds in higher latitudes, but winters near the tropics.  It is somewhat normal that young birds go astray in the fall during migration via reverse migration.  Due to confusion, they sometimes head back toward their birthplace and arrive inland, which has happened several times in Oklahoma.  Fall migration usually peaks from late August to mid-September.

These birds are somewhat susceptible to pollution during the winter, as well as during fall migration.  They will remain mostly at sea only a few miles off shore near the continental shelf.  The largest concentrations are found in winter with the usual upswells of cold water coastlines near the Equator.

These Pacific gulls will winter off the coast of  western South America in the Humboldt Current, while the Atlantic birds winter off southwest Africa.  Odd storms have much to due with the location of a few occasional strays and their distribution.  It has been under conjecture that since these birds are observed often enough inland, that they have a cross-continental migration, but for all practical purposes this natural "drift" affects more young birds than adults.

They make high pitched, somewhat grating calls, which also draws one's attention to them, but as indicated, their physical attributes are the most noteworthy.  The juvenile is brown across the head, neck, and back with a distinct white face.

The name was given the bird to honor the Irish scientist, Sir Edward Sabine by his brother, whom a specimen was sent to in 1818.