Verification of Unusual
Sight Record
For Utah
Rec. # 2025-73
| Common name: |
Little Gull |
| Scientific name: | Hydrocoloeus minutus |
| Date: | December 8, 2025 |
| Time: | 1430 |
| Length of time observed: | 45 minutes total across 2 hours or so |
| Number: | 1 |
| Age: | Adult |
| Sex: | Unknown |
| Location: | Willard Reservoir |
| County: | Box Elder |
| Latilong: | 41.342929 -112.130597 |
| Elevation: | 4,212 |
| Distance to bird: | 75-150 yards |
| Optical equipment: | 10 x 42 bins, 85 mm scope w/20-60x zoom |
| Weather: | Warm and dry; temps close to 50; little wind |
| Light Conditions: | Bright and not too glaring; diffuse sun |
| Description: Size of bird: | Just smaller than the Bonaparte's present |
| (Description:) Basic Shape: | Compact gull; not attenuated |
| (Description:) Overall Pattern: | White, gray and black |
| (Description:) Bill Type: | Thin, narrow and short; insect-gleaning |
|
(Description:)
Field Marks and Identifying Characteristics: |
Smaller than the Bonaparte's Gulls it associated with,
compact and somewhat shorter-tailed. Thin, short black bill; black eye,
eye-spot and diffuse blackish half-crown from just over the eye aft to
the top of the nape. White fore-crown, large spot above and behind the
eye; throat; under-parts. Slightly paler gray upper parts than the
Bonaparte's gray including nape drifting down across upper breast-sides
like a scarf to the water line when floating; mantle; wings. Very narrow
white scapular and tertial crescents. Open wing completely pale gray on
dorsal surface with white wing-tips and terminal band. Under-wing dark
charcoal gray with white terminal band and very flashy in-flight. Didn't
notice feet, but the open-wing photo shows a dangling pink foot. This bird's dark crown jumped out at me as I was scanning the mostly Bonaparte's roosting on the water; then I noticed the small size, paler gray upper parts and lack of black wing-tips. It took quite awhile to get the Pulitzer Prize-quality digi-scope image of the open wing as the bird left the frame, but a later preening session offered a few more photo ops to document the distinct charcoal under-wing. (see photos) |
| Song or call & method of delivery: | None heard. |
| Behavior: | Floated placidly on the water during much of the observation time. Three times, the gull took flight toward shore and joined the Bonaparte's fish-feeding melee very close to shore between the shoreline and the low water buoy. I don't remember if it actually plunge-dived for small fish like the Bonaparte's were doing or just picked items off the surface, because I was just concentrating on keeping track of it by watching the flashing blackish under-wing. Once, it made a big looping sortie to the east, but returned and landed again in the flock of Bonaparte's on the water. |
| Habitat: | Large freshwater reservoir. |
| Similar
species and
how were they eliminated: |
No other gull shows the adult Little Gull's wing pattern of pale gray upper wing with a white wing-tip and white terminal band, and blackish under-wing with white terminal band. |
| Previous
experience with this & similar species: |
One Little Gull in Utah in 2009 documented by UBRC record 2009-21; hundreds of Bonaparte's annually; one Black-headed; one Black-legged Kittiwake; no Ross's Gulls (yet), but maybe next birding trip |
| References consulted: | None in the last 2 days, but coincidentally, I just reviewed many on Dec 6 as I prepared to review UBRC record 2025-66 so they were pretty fresh, including Sibley, Nat. Geo, Birds of the World, Lars Jonsson's Birds of Europe, Olsen and Larsson's Gulls of North America, Europe and Asia, and Macaulay Library photos. |
| Description from: |
From memory From photo(s) taken at the time of the sighting |
| Observer: | Kristin Purdy |
| Observer's address: | Ogden |
| Observer's e-mail address: | ** |
| Other observers who independently identified this bird: | None |
| Date prepared: | December 8, 2025 |
| Additional material: | Photos |
| Additional comments: |