Iceland Gull

Larus glaucoides

Despite the name, breeds mostly in Greenland and Arctic Canada. Translucent wingtips against a winter sky.

Population: Not solidly quantified in this pass: BirdLife DataZone's live page did not render usable population figures (JS-only "Loading..." placeholders); IUCN considers the global trend stable. One secondary source (birdfact.com) cites "190,000-400,000 individuals" but without a verifiable primary citation — reported here as unconfirmed, low confidence.
Habitat: Breeds on narrow ledges and cliffs on remote Arctic coasts and islands; winters along open coasts, harbours, estuaries, and rocky shores, sometimes ranging inland to large lakes.
Fun fact: The Iceland Gull's nominate adults can show wingtips with essentially no melanin at all — pure white primaries — making it stand out as the palest of the "white-winged" gulls among the similarly-sized gulls it winters alongside.
Range: Breeds in Arctic Canada and Greenland (notably absent as a breeder from Iceland itself, despite the name); winters across the North Atlantic from Iceland, the British Isles, and northern Europe to the northeastern/interior United States (including the Great Lakes) and the Pacific coast.
Diet: Opportunistic omnivore/scavenger: fish taken from the surface, plus marine invertebrates, molluscs, carrion, fishing offal/discards, and scraps at harbours and garbage dumps; occasionally eggs/chicks of other seabirds and berries seasonally.
Size: 0.57 m
Wingspan: 1.33 m
Lifespan: 20 years

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