LARIDAE
BLACK-HEADED GULL



Location : Malim Nawar, Perak
Date : ‎5 ‎December ‎2020

35–39 cm Adult non-breeding: Relatively small and slim with rather narrow black-tipped red bill, dark red legs and pale grey upperside. Head mainly white, with prominent dark ear-spot and dark smudges on side of crown. Eyes dark. In flight, upperwing appears very pale with prominent white leading edge to outer wing and smallish black tips to outer primaries; underwing pattern mirrors this but coverts all greyish, outer primaries having more black and less white. Adult breeding: Dark brown hood with broken white eyering, uniform darker red bill. First winter: At rest resembles non-breeding adult but bill paler and duller with more contrasting dark tip, legs duller and more pinkish, greyish-brown centres to median and lesser coverts, inner greater coverts and tertials. In flight, upperwing shows broad greyish-brown band across coverts and broad blackish band along secondaries and tips of primaries; blackish subterminal tail-band. VOICE High-pitched screaming kyaaar and karrr. Short kek and deeper kuk notes. HABITAT Large rivers, lakes, coasts, coastal pools; up to 800 m. RANGE Sc/lc WV N,C,E,S Myanmar, north Tenasserim, coastal W,C,SE Thailand, Pen Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, N Laos, Vietnam (except W Tonkin). Also PM Cambodia. V NW,NE,C(inland),S Thailand.