Gulls of Europe, Asia and North America

Klaus Malling Olsen, Hans Larsson

• Publisher: Helm
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN:
  9780713670875
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781408135778
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Zoology
• Index: Biological Sciences

This eagerly awaited guide offers the most comprehensive treatment ever published on the gulls of Europe, Asia and North America.

A total of 43 species is treated, and every species is described in considerable detail, with a full description of each plumage and racial variation.

Gulls are intelligent, versatile, opportunistic, and ecological generalists. As such, they exploit a variety of habitats, both coastal and inland, take a wide range of food, and are often extremely abundant. They are also great wanderers, with several American species regularly appearing in Western Europe and vice versa. As well as identification criteria, this book includes an up-to-date assessment of the range and status of every species, together with information on patterns of vagrancy.

This important guide is published at a critical time in the development of dull taxonomy. The large, white-headed forms occurring in the region comprise a superspecies complex, with the precise relationships between the various components still under considerable debate. A thorough illustrative and textual treatment of the group is much needed, and this book provided the most complete overview of the complex.

The text is complemented not only by superb colour paintings by Hans Larrson, but also by a large selection of colour photographs, sourced from some of the finest bird photographers in the world. This is the essential reference to a fascinating and endlessly challenging group of birds.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright page
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgemants
• Introduction
• 1 Black-tailed Gull - Larus crassirostris
• 2 Heermann’s Gull - Larus heermanni
• 3 White-eyed Gull - Larus leucophthalmus
• 4 Sooty Gull - Larus hemprichii
• 5 Common Gull - Larus canus
• 6 Mew Gull - Larus brachyrhynchus
• 7 Audouin’s Gull - Larus audouinii
• 8 Ring-billed Gull - Larus delawarensis
• 9 California Gull - Larus californicus
• 10 Great Black-backed Gull - Larus marinus
• 11 Kelp Gull - Larus dominicanus
• 12 Glaucous-winged Gull - Larus glaucescens
• 13 Western Gull - Larus occidentalis
• 14 Yellow-footed Gull - Larus livens
• 15 Glaucous Gull - Larus hyperboreus
• 16 Iceland Gull - Larus glaucoides
• 17 Thayer’s Gull - Larus thayeri
• 18 American Herring Gull - Larus smithsonianus
• 19 Herring Gull - Larus argentatus
• 20 Yellow-legged Gull - Larus michahellis
• 21 Armenian Gull - Larus armenicus
• 22 Caspian Gull - Larus cachinnans
• 23 Vega Gull - Larus vegae
• 24 Slaty-backed Gull - Larus schistisagus
• 25 Lesser Black-backed Gull - Larus fuscus
• 26 Heuglin’s Gull - Larus heuglini
• 27 Pallas’s Gull - Larus ichthyaetus
• 28 Brown-headed Gull - Larus brunnicephalus
• 29 Grey-headed Gull - Larus cirrocephalus
• 30 Black-headed Gull - Larus ridibundus
• 31 Slender-billed Gull - Larus genei
• 32 Bonaparte’s Gull - Larus Philadelphia
• 33 Saunders’ Gull - Larus saundersi
• 34 Mediterranean Gull - Larus melanocephalus
• 35 Relict Gull - Larus relictus
• 36 Laughing Gull - Larus atricilla
• 37 Franklin’s Gull - Larus pipixcan
• 38 Little Gull - Larus minutus
• 39 Sabine’s Gull - Larus sabini
• 40 Ivory Gull - Pagophila eburnea
• 41 Ross’s Gull - Rhodostethia rosea
• 42 Black-legged Kittiwake - Rissa tridactyla
• 43 Red-legged Kittiwake - Rissa brevirostris
• Appendix of Additional Species
• References