Franklin's Gull Leucophaeus pipixcan 弗氏鷗
Category I. Accidental.
IDENTIFICATION
May 2016, Matthew Kwan.
32-36 cm. Small gull with dark grey mantle and dark legs. In breeding plumage has black head and may have pink wash on chest. In non-breeding plumage has dark grey around eye that reaches to the hind crown.
May 2016, Matthew Kwan.
Adult has white-tipped outer primaries with black subterminal bands and white internally.
First year birds are rather dark brownish-grey on the upperwing (browner on the coverts) with broad white tips to the secondaries and inner primaries, a dark tail band, rather extensive dark grey on the rear of the head and broad white crescents around the eye.
VOCALISATIONS
Calls are rather high-pitched and often inflected: ‘kyer’ or ‘kyeeear’.
DISTRIBUTION & HABITAT PREFERENCE
All sightings occurred on the intertidal mudflats of Deep Bay.
OCCURRENCE
2015: a second-winter from 26 November to 2 May 2016 (Lewthwaite 2017) that was joined by a second bird from 19 April to 2 May.
BEHAVIOUR, FORAGING & DIET
No observations.
RANGE & SYSTEMATICS
Monotypic. Breeds in the interior of central North America and winters along the west seaboard of South America (Burger and Gochfeld 2020). In China there are records from Tianjin, Hebei, Zhejiang and Taiwan (Liu and Chen 2020).
CONSERVATION STATUS
IUCN: Least Concern. Population trend increasing.
Burger, J. and M. Gochfeld (2020). Franklin's Gull (Leucophaeus pipixcan), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (A. F. Poole, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.fragul.01
Lewthwaite, R. (2017). Franklin’s Gull Leucophaeus pipixcan in Deep Bay. The first Hong Kong record. Hong Kong Bird Report 2015: 268-270.
Liu, Y. and Y.H. Chen (eds) (2020). The CNG Field Guide to the Birds of China (in Chinese). Hunan Science and Technology Publication House, Changsha.
