The brown-headed gull (''Chroicocephalus brunnicephalus'') is a small

gull Gulls, or colloquially seagulls, are seabirds of the family Laridae in the suborder Lari. They are most closely related to the terns and skimmers and only distantly related to auks, and even more distantly to waders. Until the 21st century ...

which breeds in the high plateaus of

central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...

from

Tajikistan Tajikistan (, ; tg, Тоҷикистон, Tojikiston; russian: Таджикистан, Tadzhikistan), officially the Republic of Tajikistan ( tg, Ҷумҳурии Тоҷикистон, Jumhurii Tojikiston), is a landlocked country in Centr ...

to Ordos in Inner

Mongolia Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million, ...

. It is migratory, wintering on the coasts and large inland lakes of the

Indian Subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a list of the physiographic regions of the world, physiographical region in United Nations geoscheme for Asia#Southern Asia, Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian O ...

. As is the case with many gulls, was traditionally placed in the

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

Larus ''Larus'' is a large genus of gulls with worldwide distribution (by far the greatest species diversity is in the Northern Hemisphere). Many of its species are abundant and well-known birds in their ranges. Until about 2005–2007, most gulls ...

''. This gull breeds in colonies in large reedbeds or marshes, or on islands in lakes, nesting on the ground. Like most gulls, it is highly

gregarious Sociality is the degree to which individuals in an animal population tend to associate in social groups (gregariousness) and form cooperative societies. Sociality is a survival response to evolutionary pressures. For example, when a mother wasp ...

in winter, both when feeding or in evening roosts. It is not a

pelagic The pelagic zone consists of the water column of the open ocean, and can be further divided into regions by depth (as illustrated on the right). The word ''pelagic'' is derived . The pelagic zone can be thought of as an imaginary cylinder or w ...

species, and is rarely seen at sea far from coasts. This is a bold and opportunist feeder, which will scavenge in towns or take invertebrates in ploughed fields with equal relish. The brown-headed gull is slightly larger than

black-headed gull The black-headed gull (''Chroicocephalus ridibundus'') is a small gull that breeds in much of the Palearctic including Europe and also in coastal eastern Canada. Most of the population is migratory and winters further south, but some birds r ...

. The summer adult has a pale brown head, lighter than that of black-headed, a pale grey body, and red bill and legs. The black tips to the primary wing feathers have conspicuous white "mirrors". The underwing is grey with black flight feathers. The brown hood is lost in winter, leaving just dark vertical streaks. This bird takes two years to reach maturity. First year birds have a black terminal tail band, more dark areas in the wings, and, in summer, a less homogeneous hood. This is a noisy species, especially at colonies. Brown-headed Gulls.jpg, Brown-headed gull in flight -

Ezhimala Ezhimala, a hill reaching a height of , is located near Payyanur, in Kannur district of Kerala, south India. It is a part of a conspicuous and isolated cluster of hills, forming a promontory, north of Kannur (Cannanore). The Indian Naval Acad ...

Kerala Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South ...

Brown-headed Gull, Chroicocephalus brunnicephalus.jpg, Brown-headed gull in flight - Bang Poo, Samut Prakan, Thailand Brown-headed Gull 1.JPG, At Pangong Tso Brown-headed Gull 2.JPG, At Pangong Tso Brown-headed Gull 6.JPG, At Pangong Tso Brown-headed Gull & Black-headed Gull, Gujarat.jpg, In Western India Brown Headed Gull With Fish Navi Mumbai.jpg, Brown-headed Gull fishing in

Navi Mumbai Navi Mumbai (), is a planned city situated on the west coast of the Indian subcontinent, located in the Konkan division of Maharashtra state, on the mainland of India. Navi Mumbai is part of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR). The city i ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

References

*''Birds of India'' by Grimmett, Inskipp and Inskipp, *Pons J.M., Hassanin, A., and Crochet P.A.(2005). ''Phylogenetic relationships within the Laridae (Charadriiformes: Aves) inferred from mitochondrial markers.'' Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 37(3):686-699

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Brown-Headed gull Chroicocephalus Birds of Tibet Birds described in 1840 Taxobox binomials not recognized by IUCN Taxa named by Thomas C. Jerdon