Pallas’s Gull Icthyaetus icthyaetus 漁鷗
Category I. Scarce winter visitor and spring passage migrant to Deep Bay.
IDENTIFICATION
Mar. 2015, Michelle and Peter Wong. Adult, breeding plumage.
60-72 cm. Large gull with long forehead and bill. Adult breeding has black hood and black-tipped yellow bill and legs, while adult winter has a greyish partial hood. Third winter birds have slightly more extensive black on wing tip than adults, and/or some black in the tail.
Mar. 2015, Martin Hale. Adult, breeding plumage.
Relatively slim wings and deep chest in flight. Adult upper wings are rather pale with limited black subterminal marks in the primaries and there is no tail band or dark in the wing coverts.
Mar. 2014, Michelle and Peter Wong. First-winter.
In immature plumages has dark mask through eye and white eye crescents. First winter birds have extensive grey in mantle contrasting with brownish wings and wing coverts, white rump and tail and dark tail band. Second-winter birds are similar to adult but have faint brown in outer wing coverts, more extensive black in the outer primaries and a narrow black tail band.
VOCALISATIONS
Appears to call very rarely in HK. The flight call from the breeding grounds is deep and nasal.
DISTRIBUTION & HABITAT PREFERENCE
All records since 1999 have occurred on the intertidal mudflats of Deep Bay.
OCCURRENCE
Pallas’s Gull is a scarce winter visitor and spring passage migrant; extreme dates are 12 November 2016 and 7 April 1995. Figure 1 indicates that it is rarely recorded before the end of the year, though this may be related to the lack of diurnal high tides in December. Winter numbers peak in January, while passage of migrants occurs in March and early April.
After the first record on 26 December 1974 (Viney 1975), Pallas’s Gull remained rare with only two further records up to 1983. After 1984, however, it was recorded nearly annually up to the end of 1992. Although there were ten birds in winter 1993/1994 and nine in winter 1994/1995, generally five or fewer are recorded, though occasionally it is not recorded at all.
BEHAVIOUR, FORAGING & DIET
No observations.
RANGE & SYSTEMATICS
Monotypic. Breeds in scattered areas from the Black Sea east through the north Caspian, Kazakhstan, northwest and north China and western Mongolia; winters from southern parts of the Black and Caspian Seas east to western Central Asia, and from the Red Sea east through India to northwest Indochina and south China (Burger et al. 2020). In China breeds patchily in the northwest and north, and winters coastally in Guangxi and Guangdong (Liu and Chen 2020).
CONSERVATION STATUS
IUCN: Least Concern. Population trend increasing.
Figure 1.
Burger, J., M. Gochfeld, E. de Juana, E. F. J. Garcia, and G. M. Kirwan (2020). Pallas's Gull (Ichthyaetus ichthyaetus), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.gbhgul2.01
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.
Viney, C. A. (1975). Systematic List for 1974. Hong Kong Bird Report 1974: 7-36.
