Xema – Sabine’s gull

While most gulls follow a fairly standard color palette of white and grey, Sabine’s gull breaks the mold with a striking, geometric look. During the breeding season, they sport a slate-grey “hood” that is perfectly outlined by a thin, jet-black collar. However, their most iconic feature—and what makes them technically different from every other gull—is the tri-colored wing pattern. In flight, their wings display a bold, high-contrast arrangement of grey, black, and a massive white triangle. This “checkerboard” effect is so distinct that even a beginner can identify it from miles away as they skip over the ocean waves.

What truly separates Sabine’s gull from its more common relatives is its tern-like personality. While many gulls are famous for being bold scavengers that hang around parking lots or docks, Sabine’s gull is a refined, oceanic specialist. They have a buoyant, graceful flight style—dropping and rising like a piece of driftwood—and they rarely ever set foot on land except to breed. They even have a slightly forked tail, a feature usually reserved for terns or swallows, which helps them maneuver with incredible precision as they snatch tiny fish and plankton right off the surface of the water without ever stopping.

The “humanized” side of this bird is its status as a world-class marathoner. Once they leave their breeding grounds in the high Arctic, they don’t just migrate; they embark on an epic journey that crosses hemispheres. Most Sabine’s gulls spend their winters in the “upwelling” zones off the coasts of South Africa or Peru, where cold, nutrient-rich water provides a constant feast. They are true “pelagic” birds, meaning they spend months on end out of sight of land, braving the massive swells of the open Atlantic and Pacific. They are the quiet adventurers of the bird world, choosing the solitude of the deep ocean over the noise of the coast.