Franklin Gull

The Franklin Gull is a neatly patterned bird that can be found in flocks of thousands along the marshy wetlands of North America. Breeding adults have delicate colors that have led to their colloquial names of “rosy doves” and “prairie doves”. With not only their colors but also their buoyant and graceful strides during flight, giving rise to such a cultural perception. Initial expeditions into their breeding grounds during the 19th century also led to naturalists mistakenly dubbing them “Laughing Gulls” due to their unique characteristics. They are travel thousands of miles during migration seasons, typically wintering along the coasts of Chile and Peru in South America. Flocks that gather on their wintering grounds have been reported to be incomprehensibly large, with numbers going over a million in a single day.

About Franklin Gulls

These birds are tough survivors and are known for their floating nests during breeding seasons. Their nests need constant maintenance but are a remarkable feat of nature due to their unique constructions. They are rare along the coasts of North America during the breeding seasons but are abundant in the interiors where they can be found along inland marshes in large colonies consisting of thousands of pairs.

While there have been threats to their populations over the last 3 decades, they can still be observed in various locations across the Americas depending on the season. Today, we want to shed some light on these travelers.

● Franklin Gull Photos, Color Pattern, Song
● Franklin Gull Size, Eating Behavior, Habitat
● Franklin Gull Range and Migration, Nesting

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Franklin Gull Color Pattern

Franklin Gulls are distinct during their breeding and non-breeding seasons. They are small birds that have a dark gray mantle and a blackhead during the breeding seasons. Their upper parts are dark gray, while their legs and bill have reddish features that stand out with the gray center present in their upper tail. Breeding adults have a bold and partial white eye-ring. They also have a delicate pink cast on their breast feathers when the birds first arrive on the breeding ground. The pigment in these pink feathers generally disappears after a couple of weeks due to exposure to the sun.

Non-breeding adults retain their gray mantle but have brown centers in their upper wing coverts during their first winter. Their primary flight feathers are blackish with varying degrees of white subterminal marks. A dark-gray “saddle” like pattern is present across the top of their heads below the eye. They retain the gray centers in their whitetails. The wingtips are white which is between white wingtips with black spots.

Juveniles look similar to non-breeding adults but they have a more uniform color. They have a whitish forehead, chin, throat, lores, and feathering at the base of the bill. These areas are typically paler than their crowns, which are a dusky gray along their ear coverts and nape. There is some white flecking that resembles a partial hood. The hindneck, mantle, and the outer feathers of their wings are a brownish-gray. Their backs are pearly gray and their mantles are pale. Their underparts are almost entirely white except for a dark wash on the sides of their neck, extending across the upper breast in some individuals to form a vague, partial collar.

Description and Identification

Franklin Gulls are smal, quaint birds that are distinct throughout the year. They often gather in large flocks. During the breeding seasons, you can find them at the National Wildlife Refuges in densely populated colonies. They have distinct breeding plumages as they engage in courting rituals and begin nesting. In the initial days of the breeding season, they have pale pink feathers on their breasts when they are in flight. You can hear their calls from a distance, in water bodies, around farm fields and lakeshores, and even in higher elevations. During the non-breeding seasons, they live around the western coasts of South America. Here they are still conspicuous due to their large numbers despite their plainer appearances.

Franklin Gull Song

These colonies are typically quite noisy, and the intensity of the volume depends on their numbers and location. Adults have many calls. The first is an alarm call, a loud series of repeated calls that sounds like “kuk-kuk-kuk-kuk” or “kek-kek”. They make these sounds if there is a disturbance in their territory, with the most frequent targets being moose and humans. While initially, only a few Gulls make this sound, large groups may join in if the disturbance persists. Parents also make this call to their chicks.

The second call is the long call, a sound that differs from other Gulls and begins with a short “kah”. Then they make a series of high-pitch long notes that sound like “keeaaaahh”. The long notes transition into a series of shorter notes before ending in an abrupt hissy note. The third call is similar to the end of the long call. They make this call as they land. It occurs when a bird lands on its nest platforms, but it doesn’t occur when landing on other nests in order to steal nest material.

The next call is called “gakkering”, a series of loud and undulating “kakakakakaka” calls that are strung together and repeated for several minutes without breaks. This occurs when adults or older chicks defend their nests against predators or intruders. Other calls also include a loud, charge call, “keeeeoooh” that they repeat two times or more while swooping down towards intruders and a harsh “ka-ka-ka” that occurs during copulation. They make a softer mew call during courtship and at the chicks in their initial days.

Franklin Gull Size

Franklin Gulls are fairly small birds that are around 12.6–14.2 inches in length. Their relatively long wings have a wingspan of 33.5–37.4 inches and they weigh approximately 8–10.6 ounces. They have a short neck along with a slim, and a rather short bill. These birds also have short tails. These proportions make them larger than Bonaparte’s Gulls but smaller than Laughing Gulls.

Franklin Gull Behavior

Courtship for these birds begins as soon as they arrive in their breeding grounds if all the snow and ice are gone. At the display sites of floating vegetation, males stand and call to females. If a prospective female appears, males begin to display by turning away, erecting their neck feathers, and hiding their blackheads. Interested females respond by performing the same display. The pair continues by alternatively turning towards and away from each other. Once paired, males give females food as the females hunch over and raise their heads and bills quickly, similar to a begging chick. Courtship is followed by copulation, after which pairs generally remain together due to their monogamous mating systems.

Although males tend to be aggressive in defending their territories during the breeding seasons, they are amicable with other gull species, terns, and shorebirds in mixed flocks during the migration seasons and winter. However, they are quite sensitive to external disturbances and usually abandon colonies at the first signs of disturbances from predators and humans, with large numbers flying over their nests in silence for several minutes until the threats disappear.

Franklin Gull Diet

During the breeding seasons, these birds mainly eat invertebrates and small amounts of vegetation. Their plant-based food includes sunflower seeds, wheat, and oats. While their insect prey includes beetles, bugs, grasshoppers, crickets, locusts, flies, earthworms, grubs, midges, dragonflies, damselflies, and the larvae of these insects. Occasionally, they may also consume leeches, snails, crayfish, fish, and small mice. They typically capture their prey while they are flying over wetlands and farm fields but may also capture midges from the surface of the water. Around agricultural areas, they follow tractors and hunt for the insects that come off of plows and disks.

During the winter, their diet still incorporates insects and other invertebrates but includes more marine life. They eat small fish like anchovies and jacks, and crustaceans like hermit crabs and mole crabs. They also find isopods along shorelines. If there are fish-processing factories in the area, they find fish scraps at refuse dumps along with other Gulls in the area.

Franklin Gull Habitat

These birds breed in freshwater marshes with abundant amounts of emergent vegetation and patches of open water. Thousands of birds form a colony and generally nest less than 2 feet away from the neighboring birds, with birds foraging in the prairies and the mountains of western North America. Following the breeding season, they can be found in almost every area of North America, including remarkably high elevations of 14,000 feet in the Rocky Mountains. They forage through agricultural areas, pastures, sewage ponds, lakes, lagoons, estuaries, bays, and various other kinds of wetlands when they travel towards their wintering grounds. Their wintering grounds lie on the western coast of South America, where they gather in large colonies along ocean coastlines and shorelines. They may forage as far as 30 miles out into the sea, and they can also be found at high-elevation lakes in Peru far from the ocean. These birds tend to be opportunistic and take advantage of the best habitats at any time of the year.

Range and Migration

Franklin Gulls are long-distant migrants that breed in south-central Canada, south of Alberta till around the border regions of the United States. Their migrations carry them thousands of miles away towards the coasts of Peru and Chile in South America. They cross through most of the United States and Mexico and streamline their route through the western coasts of Central America to reach their wintering grounds.

Franklin Gull Lifecycle

After their elaborate courtship and copulation practices during the breeding seasons, females lay 2-3 buff to olive or brown eggs. Incubation is done by both parents for 23-26 days, following which chicks hatch covered in down. They hatch with their eyes open and are able to stand within a day; however, they remain in their nests for three weeks. Females do not have more than one brood in a season. These chicks are capable of flight within 35 days and are generally fed by their parents for around a week more after that.

Nesting

Display and nest sites are selected by the males in floating vegetation or anchored stems in still, shallow water. They tend to select sites with abundant emergent vegetation. Both members of the pair construct the nest. A platform of wet vegetation is first made, with material often stolen from other Gulls’ nests. The nests generally have a central depression. As the nest begins to decay in the floating water, the parents continually add new vegetation as they incubate the eggs. The nests are likely made on the water to avoid predators, as birds of their size on the ground are highly vulnerable. The resulting nests typically have a small ramp on one side, with the proportions being up to 40 inches across as material continues to be added.

Anatomy of a Franklin Gull

Franklin Gulls are small birds with short necks and short bills. Their wings are relatively long in relation to their bodies, and their tails are short. They have delicate black and white plumes during their breeding seasons, along with light pink feathers on their breasts.

Final Thoughts

Franklin Gulls have been steadily declining in numbers since 1968 by 3% every year, with the percentage spiking up for a few years in between. This has resulted in a decline of nearly 95% over the years. Drainage of wetlands, modification of nesting habitats, and environmental pollutants pose great threats to their numbers. Factors like climate change and their acute sensitivity to human beings also play major roles in their decline. This places it on the Yellow Watch List of the surveys conducted by Partners in Flight.

Franklin Gulls undertake some of the most exhaustively long migrations in the animal world. Their migration is a sight to be witnessed and preserved. Now more than ever, is an important time to learn about such natural treasures in order to preserve the wonders that nature still has to offer to us.

Ornithology

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Bird Watching Binoculars for IdentifyingFranklin Gulls

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Franklin Gull Stickers

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Bird Houses ForFranklin Gulls

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