It’s about time that we cover the Kelp Gull—the very creature perched at the top of Atlantic Gull magazine’s masthead—in our Avian column. One suspects the gull itself would meet this overdue coverage with the same disdain it reserves for sandwiches too tightly wrapped.
Larus dominicanus vetula is a study in contradictions. Aesthetically handsome in its Dominican black-and-white—named, no less, after friars of that order—it’s at once austere and appallingly opportunistic. Measuring up to 65 cm with a 142 cm wingspan and weighing between 540 and 1 390 gm, it’s not exactly enormous, but certainly large enough to unsettle someone defending his burger. Its bright yellow bill is tipped with a blood-red spot—nature’s own exclamation mark.
A committed omnivore with a disregard for delicacy, almost everything goes for the Kelp Gull: molluscs, carrion, chips, frogs, berries and fellow birds. Rather grossly, it’s been documented as feeding on the living flesh of whales. Therefore, less seabird, more feathered buccaneer. Aka Gullzilla.
It breeds in many settings: rocky cliffs, factory roofs, shipwrecks, sewage works—every habitat a statement. Nests are no-frills platforms of seaweed and plants and both parents dutifully raise the 2–3 chicks. They’re born suspicious and brown, growing paler as their cynicism matures.
Larus dominicanus flourishes in the debris of our lives: landfills, abattoirs and disturbed shores. If the end is nigh, the Kelp Gull will be there, calling its strident ki-och, and helping itself to the leftovers.
Ref: oceana.org; datazone.birdlife.org
