16 THE PAU Dsus OPN MB User 
The California Gull (Larus calitornicus] 
By Anna C. Ames 
The state bird of Utah, the California Gull, is like a small Herring Gull 
with yellowish-green legs. It has more white on the wingtips than the 
Herring, and is pure gray rather than pearly-gray in mantle. The wingtips 
are black below. The bill usually has a dusky subterminal band. Sexes 
are alike in plumage. The young have a black bill that becomes progressively 
more yellow as the bird matures. It takes about four years to reach the 
adult stage of a yellow bill with a small, red spot on the upper and lower 
mandibles. Gulls are unable to breed until they are fully adult. 
Gulls are probably the best known of sea birds, as they are common 
and conspicuous about harbors and beaches, Only one species, the Kitti- 
wake, is found regularly out of sight of land. Gulls are sociable birds, 
migrating, hunting, resting, and scavenging together. Gull colonies are 
often on small coastal islands, safe from most enemies. Gulls often nest 
in close association with other species. The California Gull of Great Salt 
Lake nests with White Pelicans, Double-crested Cormorants, and Herring 
Gulls as neighbors. 
Gulls nest on the ground, building a bulky structure of seaweed and 
other vegetation. A century or so ago, egging was a common practice and 
gull eggs were brought to market by the thousands along the American 
coasts. This practice, although now outlawed by the United States, is still 
carried on in other parts of the world. There are usually two or three 
brownish eggs, heavily spotted with black. Both sexes share the incubation 
duties. 
On a lonely shore of Lake Superior I once found a Herring Gull’s nest 
with one fluffy little chick covered with grayish down dotted with black, 
and one egg. The young tend to stay on or near the nest until they are 
fairly well grown. The egg shell had been removed some distance before 
being dropped. There was but one nest in the vicinity. 
The California Gull nests in the marshes and uplands of the western 
interior lakes, from Great Slave Lake of northwestern Canada to California 
and North Dakota, and sometimes to southern Alaska, Mexico, and Texas. 
It forms large colonies on its nesting grounds. It spends the winter on the 
Pacific coast. 
The habit of nesting inland makes this gull of unusual economic 
importance to communities near its breeding grounds. Grasshoppers are 
a favorite food, as well as mice. Everyone knows of the miracle of the 
gulls that came like delivering angels when a swarm of crickets threatened 
to destroy the crops of the early Mormons in 1848. The gulls did not come, 
as the story is often told, all the way from the Pacific to meet the emer- 
gency, Eighty thousand of them breed on Gunnison, Egg, Bird, and White 
Rock Islands in Great Salt Lake. In 1913, grateful for the gull’s service to 
the hard-pressed pioneers, the Mormons of Salt Lake City erected a notable 
monument surmounted by the bronze figures of two gulls. There is only 
one other monument erected in honor of a bird, the Passenger Pigeon (in 
Wyalusing State Park, Wisconsin). Recently the Barn Owl has achieved 
distinction by having its image placed on the reverse side of a medal 
honoring John Audubon. 
Gulls prefer animal food and fish, but will eat almost anything. On 
the midwestern plains the California Gull follows the plow to gather 
