Most people glance at a gull wheeling over a Virginia Beach parking lot and call it a “seagull,” but that single word hides a surprising amount of diversity. Gulls in Virginia range from a crow-sized bird with a black hood to a four-pound predator that can swallow a duckling whole. There are 28 recognized gull species in North America, and Virginia’s coastline, rivers, and even landfills host four that show up often enough to learn by sight.
Each of these birds tells a slightly different story about the state’s changing coastline. Some are struggling as their marsh nesting grounds disappear underwater, while others have expanded their range south only in the last few decades. Anyone who spends time near Virginia’s water birds will eventually need to sort out these four look-alikes, and knowing what to check first (bill color, leg color, and body size) makes the job much easier.
1. Laughing Gull
The laughing gull (Leucophaeus atricilla) is the easiest of Virginia’s common gulls to identify once it reaches adulthood. Laughing gulls are medium-sized gulls, about the size of a crow, with a dramatic black-hooded head and a red bill. That hood disappears in winter, leaving behind a smudgy gray ear patch that can confuse beginning birders trying to match the bird to its summer photos.
The species earns its name from a call that sounds uncannily like human laughter, and along the coast their raucous calls have long marked the arrival of spring on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. Laughing gulls winter in Central America and return each year to nest in salt marshes, sometimes showing up over freshly plowed fields or fast-food parking lots before they even reach the water.
That history runs deep. Laughing gulls have been part of the culture of the Eastern Shore of Virginia for hundreds of years, nesting in colonies so dense that residents once organized egg-collecting trips into the marshes each spring. Several marsh islands still carry names tied to that tradition.
Pro Tip: Listen before you look. A laughing gull’s cackling call often carries over a marsh or parking lot long before the bird itself comes into view.
The trend line is less encouraging than the folklore. Since a 1993 survey, laughing gull colonies nesting in marshes south of Wallops Island have declined by more than 90 percent, as rising water has swallowed the low marsh islands where they once nested by the thousands.
The Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources lists the species as having a moderate conservation need under the state’s Wildlife Action Plan, and researchers tracking the decline note that the salt marshes where laughing gulls historically nested are now underwater for much of the year. Birders hoping to see one of Virginia’s native breeding bird species up close should head for barrier islands and bridge-tunnel colonies rather than the vanishing marsh islands of decades past.
2. Ring-billed Gull
The ring-billed gull (Larus delawarensis) is Virginia’s most common inland gull, and it is just as comfortable circling a shopping mall parking lot as it is riding waves offshore. It is a fairly small gull, common and widespread throughout most of North America, and breeding adults show a white head with a bold black ring around a yellow bill, along with pale eyes and yellow legs that separate them from Virginia’s larger gulls.
Unlike the laughing gull, ring-billed gulls treat Virginia mainly as a winter destination rather than a breeding ground. According to habitat surveys, the ring-billed gull is a very common winter resident and transient in Virginia, arriving in large numbers during late fall and remaining through early spring across lakes, rivers, coasts, mudflats, and even landfills. Their habit of scavenging almost anything edible has made them one of the most familiar gulls at rest stops and fast-food lots across the state.
| Species | Typical Size | Key ID Features | Season in Virginia |
|---|---|---|---|
| Laughing Gull | Crow-sized | Black hood, red bill, dark legs (breeding) | Spring through fall (breeding) |
| Ring-billed Gull | Small-to-medium | Black ring on yellow bill, pale eyes, yellow legs | Late fall through early spring |
| Herring Gull | Large | Pale gray back, slim yellow bill with red spot, pale legs | Year-round, most abundant on coast |
| Great Black-backed Gull | Very large | Black back, bulbous yellow bill, pink legs | Year-round permanent resident on coast |
That reliance on human-altered landscapes has made the species a genuine nuisance in a few well-documented cases. In the 1990s, an estimated 7,000 ring-billed gulls were found roosting during winter on the Potomac River near what is now Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, prompting wildlife managers to run an evening pyrotechnics program to push the roost to a safer location.
Key Insight: Ring-billed gulls readily adapt to cities and airports, which is part of why they turn up so often in places without much natural shoreline, unlike Virginia’s coastal-bound herring and great black-backed gulls.
Ring-billed gulls range far beyond Virginia, and birders comparing regional checklists will notice the species shows up on inland lakes and reservoirs across much of the country, much like the mixed flocks found among Texas’s water birds. Their willingness to nest in large ground colonies lined with grass and twigs also makes them one of the easier gulls to study up close during migration stopovers.
3. Herring Gull
Ask most Virginians to picture a seagull, and they are probably picturing a herring gull (Larus smithsonianus). Herring gulls are the familiar, quintessential sea-gull in Virginia, occupying farmland, coasts, bays, beaches, lakes, piers, and landfills, and they are most abundant along the coast and around the state’s larger lakes and river systems.
Adults show a pale gray back, white head and underside, and black wingtips, but the fastest way to tell a herring gull from a ring-billed gull is the bill. Herring gulls have a slim yellow bill with a red spot near the tip and pale legs, larger overall than a laughing gull and lacking the black ring seen on a ring-billed gull’s bill.
Herring gulls are also opportunists in the truest sense. If you have ever wondered what wild birds eat to get by, a herring gull is a good case study: beyond the popcorn and chips people drop at the beach, they eat fish, crustaceans, mollusks, marine worms, smaller birds, eggs, carrion, and insects. Some have even learned to follow feeding whales to snap up fish pushed to the surface, and they routinely carry hard-shelled prey high into the air and drop it onto rocks to crack it open.
Pro Tip: Watch a mixed flock at a pier for a few minutes. Herring gulls are noticeably bulkier than nearby ring-billed gulls, and their pale legs (versus a ring-billed gull’s yellow legs) are visible even at a distance.
Unlike the laughing gull’s marsh colonies, herring gulls nest on barrier islands and rooftops, often alongside great black-backed gulls, and their numbers stay fairly stable across Virginia’s coast throughout the year rather than shifting dramatically with the seasons.
4. Great Black-backed Gull
The great black-backed gull (Larus marinus) is unmistakable once you know what to look for, mostly because there is simply more bird to look at. Weighing in at over four pounds, the great black-backed gull is the largest gull in the world, with a striking black back that contrasts against a snow-white head and bubblegum-pink legs. Anyone curious how it stacks up against other outsized birds can compare it with the continent’s largest birds in North America to appreciate just how much bulk this gull carries relative to its relatives.
That size comes with a reputation. According to the Cornell Lab’s Audubon field guide, its diet includes carrion, fish, mollusks, crustaceans, marine worms, insects, rodents, berries, and even the eggs and young of other birds. It is not shy about using that size either, sometimes taking adult birds as prey rather than settling for scraps, and its wingspan rivals some of the biggest flying birds anywhere, stretching close to five and a half feet across.
Breeding in Virginia is a fairly recent development for this species. The first documented breeding record in Virginia did not occur until 1970 at Fisherman Island, and the species now nests on barrier islands and manmade structures such as the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel and the concrete ships off Kiptopeke State Park. That expansion mirrors a broader pattern: the great black-backed gull’s population has been increasing in North America since at least the 1930s, with its breeding range steadily expanding south along the Atlantic Coast after decades of feather-trade pressure nearly wiped populations out.
Important Note: Great black-backed gulls can live remarkably long lives, and vabirdatlas.org notes individuals have survived over 19 years in the wild, so the same bird you spot on a Virginia jetty one winter may well return for years to come.
Because they nest on the ground, often on rocky outcroppings or grassy mounds mixed with seaweed and debris, great black-backed gulls are vulnerable to the same rising water levels threatening laughing gull colonies elsewhere on the coast. For now, though, the species remains a common to abundant permanent resident along Virginia’s shoreline, with smaller numbers appearing inland at landfills and along tidal rivers during migration and winter.
Telling these four gulls apart gets easier with practice, and the payoff is worth it. Once you can separate a laughing gull’s black hood from a ring-billed gull’s ringed bill, and a herring gull’s pale legs from a great black-backed gull’s pink ones, a crowded pier full of “seagulls” turns into a much more interesting scene. Keep an eye on leg color, bill markings, and overall size, and Virginia’s gulls stop looking like one species and start looking like the four distinct birds they actually are.