The Herring Gull is the big gull of the Great Lakes — noticeably larger than the Ring-billed, with a heavy yellow bill marked by a red spot, pale eyes, and pink legs. This is the archetypal "seagull" whose bugling long-call — head thrown back, wings half-raised — is the soundtrack of every Michigan harbor.
Herring Gulls are four-year gulls, cycling through a famously confusing series of brown immature plumages that humble even experienced birders. They're resourceful in the extreme: dropping clams on rocks to crack them, following fishing boats, patrolling ice edges in winter. The red bill spot is a scientific landmark — chicks peck at it to trigger feeding, one of the classic demonstrations of innate behavior.
Fish, mussels, and crayfish along the lakes, eggs and chicks in colonies, carrion, and refuse — an opportunist's portfolio. Shellfish get the drop-on-rocks treatment until something cracks.
Size and legs: the Herring Gull is much bulkier with pink legs and a red spot on the lower bill; the Ring-billed is smaller with yellow legs and a clean black bill ring. Side by side the size gap is obvious.
It's a feeding target — chicks instinctively peck at the red spot, which prompts the parent to regurgitate food. Tinbergen's experiments on this earned a share of a Nobel Prize.
Heat conservation — tucking one leg into belly feathers halves the heat lost through bare skin. A countercurrent blood system in the legs keeps the standing foot just above freezing.
No — this is a permanent resident here, recorded in all twelve months. Numbers stay fairly steady from month to month. What changes through the year is behavior rather than presence: conspicuous song and display in spring, quieter foraging the rest of the year.
Because Herring Gulls take four years to mature, and every year looks different — from an all-dark-billed brown first-year bird through progressively grayer stages to the clean gray-and-white adult with a yellow bill. A single pier can hold all four ages at once.
Yes — colonies on Great Lakes islands and breakwalls, where pairs defend small territories within a crowded group. Away from the colony, mixed flocks on piers and landfills are the best place to see the four age classes side by side.
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