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Sabine's gull
Xema sabini | Vorkstaartmeeuw | Gaviota de Sabine
A small, tern-like gull of the open ocean, brought within reach of the coast only by a sustained north-westerly blow. The black, white and grey triptych on the upperwing carries a long way, which is fortunate, because the view is usually distant and wet.
Voice
Usually silent at sea. At the colony and in small parties it gives a harsh, tern-like ki-k-k-kree, higher and more grating than a Kittiwake. Off western European coasts the call is effectively irrelevant, since birds pass at range and into the wind.
No freely licensed recording is available for this species yet.
Identification
Summer adults have a slate-grey hood closed off below by a thin black collar, and a black bill with a yellow tip. The back and forewing are grey, the outer primaries black and the inner primaries and secondaries white, so the upperwing carries three sharply bounded triangles. The tail is white and clearly forked. Most birds passing western Europe are juveniles, with the same wing pattern but with brown-scalloped back and coverts, a black terminal tail band, and a grey-brown boa running from the crown down the side of the neck.
Confusion species
Juvenile Kittiwake is the bird that turns up on the same days. Both are small, fast and boldly marked, but the pattern does not match: Kittiwake carries a black W across outstretched wings and a black collar on the nape, while Sabine's shows three clean triangles, black outside, white in the middle and grey on the forewing, with no collar. If the tail is visible the case is closed: forked on Sabine's, at most shallowly notched on Kittiwake and with a black terminal band running into the corners.
Habitat
Outside the breeding season a true pelagic seabird, working the open ocean over upwelling zones and reaching sight of land only in heavy weather. Breeds on low-lying, wet high-arctic tundra dense with pools and ponds, often in small loose colonies among Arctic Terns, picking insects, larvae and small fish from the surface.
Where the bird is most at home, classified with EUNIS — the European standard for habitats.
Range and movements
Breeds in high-arctic Canada, Alaska, Greenland, Svalbard and Siberia; Svalbard is the nearest breeding ground to Europe. Birds passing the North Sea come from eastern Canada and Greenland and stage in the Bay of Biscay before continuing to the waters off Namibia and South Africa. Numbers seen from land are small everywhere, with the Atlantic coasts of Britain, Ireland and Iberia doing better than the North Sea.
- Breeding (summer)
- Passage
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
Where and when to look
Seawatching is the only approach. Pick a September or October day with force seven or more from the north-west, take a sheltered headland or sea wall, and work the surf line and the band beyond it. Expect a juvenile rather than an adult, so look for the triangles and not for the grey hood.
Conservation status
Not globally threatened and, as far as is known, increasing rather than declining. In the Russian part of the range birds suffer from hunting and egg collecting. The longer-term uncertainty is climate: both the wet tundra it nests on and the upwelling systems it winters over are sensitive to change. The rising count of records in western Europe says more about the number of seawatchers than about the birds.