Last month I noticed a banded immature Herring Gull at the south end of Wrightsville Beach. It was cooperative and let me take several photos of its band. This allowed me to read the entire number and learn that it was banded last year on June 4 in Sandusky, Ohio, when it was just a chick. I saw it again this week, still hanging out with the fishermen at the south end.

These common gulls are found from the Caribbean to the northern reaches of Canada. Since the turn of the nineteenth century, Herring Gulls  have been expanding their breeding range southward from Maine. In some cases, as they spread along the Atlantic coast, they displace other nesting birds such as Laughing Gulls and cause problems for terns by preying on their chicks. They, in turn, are sometimes displaced by the larger Great Black-backed Gull.

Younger, non-breeding Herring Gulls tend to migrate farther south, while breeding adults stay closer to home. Many sub-adult Herring Gulls winter along the southern Atlantic coast and the Gulf coast. This individual could have migrated south to the Carolinas after fledging and simply stayed to take advantage of a reliable food supply at Masonboro Inlet. If this bird remains cooperative, perhaps someone else will get lucky in a few years and learn where it ultimately chooses to nest.

-- Lindsay Addison