Appearance:

Small and agile gull with all black wing-tips, black legs (adults) and yellow bill. Area close to wing-tips much paler than rest of wings, and often visible at surprisingly long range (more so than the black tips). Adult winter with grey neck and black half-collar. Juveniles with black zig-zag pattern to wings, resembling pattern seen in Little Gull, Ross's Gull and Sabine's Gull. Differs from those in; no dark bar on secondaries, underparts of wing white, back grey, black on primaries reaches wing-tip. Flight action different from larger gulls; fast, stiff wing-beats and elegant maneuvering even in strong winds.

Sound:

Highly vocal at breeding ground. A mewing "kitti-wake", with the pitch rising on the second drawn out syllable, and then falling. Generally silent elsewhere, except when squabbling over food.

Contact call:

Distribution:

Wikipedia: map (se also Xeno-canto below)

Ecology:

Birdlife ecology

Links:

Observation.org Latest observations

Video IBC

Image search Flickr NB! May give other species

Sound search at Xeno-canto

Featherbase

CC

Sounds:Recorded by Stein Ø. Nilsen,http://www.xeno-canto.org ,CC license

Appearance:

Dark blue metallic upperparts, deep red forehead and throat and light underparts. Long tail-streamers in adults and deeply forked tail. Both the metallic blue and the deep red appears black at a distance. Combination of dark throat/breast and light underparts and vent is diagnostic, and distinguishes it both from Red-rumped Swallow and the smaller martins. Juveniles are less brightly coloured with a dull red throat, and short streamers.

Sound:

Characteristic calls and song. Contact call a short and sharp "weet" or "kee-weet". Song a sparkling, squeaky energetic improvisation with interspersed contact calls, often with diagnostic ending; an electric and drawn-out "su-eerrrrrrrrrrrrrrr".

Song:

Distribution:

Wikipedia: map (se also Xeno-canto below)

Ecology:

Birdlife ecology

Links:

Observation.org Latest observations

Video IBC

Image search Flickr NB! May give other species

Sound search at Xeno-canto

Featherbase

CC