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The Black-headed Gulls at Duck Park Boardwalk were rare visitors to North Carolina, not a globally rare species. In an essay published on 13 January 2026, Outer Banks birder Mary Alice Hayward described two of them—an adult and a juvenile—among wintering Bonaparte’s Gulls in Duck, North Carolina. Their stay drew birders from across the state and neighboring states, and the adult’s red bill and legs offered the clues needed to pick it out of the flock.
The story’s title, Duck Time – the Rare Black-Headed Gull, is about a particular place and season. The species is abundant in Britain, but unusual on the Carolina coast. Here is what happened at Duck, why the birds were notable, and how to distinguish a winter Black-headed Gull from its more familiar lookalikes.
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Two Black-headed Gulls (Chroicocephalus ridibundus) appeared in the chilly water around the Duck Park Boardwalk in late December 2025. Hayward wrote that they stayed with a flock of Bonaparte’s Gulls over Christmas and New Year. One was an adult; the juvenile was harder to keep track of because it blended into the flock more readily. Some reports mentioned only the adult.
The birds brought different kinds of excitement. Some visitors were looking for a life bird; others wanted the species on a 2025 year list or a fresh 2026 list. In a comment on the essay, Jeff Lewis said he had added the gulls to both. That overlap between the end of one year and the start of another gave the winter stakeout an extra draw for birders keeping annual lists.
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The evidence includes individual eBird reports. On 1 January 2026, Matt Florez reported two Black-headed Gulls at Duck Park Boardwalk. On 2 January, Audrey Whitlock’s eBird checklist recorded one: the adult, feeding on mudflats behind the Wings ice-cream area. Whitlock noted that the red bill and legs stood out and that she did not look for the second bird. The complete traveling checklist covered 2 hours 16 minutes and one mile, with 23 species and 577 individual birds recorded. Among its gulls were six Bonaparte’s, 45 Ring-billed, four American Herring, and one Great Black-backed Gull.
Two Black-headed Gulls were also reported on 29 January. That is the latest dated count in the records described here; it does not establish when the birds left. The available reports document their presence through that date, not their departure.
Duck is a town in Dare County on the northern Outer Banks. The eBird hotspot is listed as TOWA: Duck Park Boardwalk, also called the Soundside Boardwalk. The path is nearly a mile long, looks out over Currituck Sound, and connects with the 11-acre Duck Town Park, which includes maritime forest, a willow swamp, and open ground by the sound. This setting puts birders close to the sheltered water and shore where gulls gather.
Hayward’s essay says she had seen Black-headed Gulls in Dare County before, but that Carolina Bird Club statistics had not included a Duck report. That is her account of the town’s record history; the club’s published species account does not name Duck specifically. It is fair to describe the sighting as notable for Duck, but the available sources do not independently establish it as the town’s first.
Why is a Black-headed Gull rare in North Carolina?
“Rare” depends on where you are. The Carolina Bird Club’s North Carolina account describes the species as an Old World breeder that strays to North America annually. It says usually one to several are reported along and near the North Carolina coast each winter. The account characterizes the bird as a rare winter visitor on the Coastal Plain, essentially along the coast and in the Tidewater, and very rare in the Tidewater in particular. It also says the species may be slightly increasing there.
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The main North Carolina season runs from mid-November to mid-March. April records occur, including one as late as 23 April, and the account notes an unusually late first-summer bird at Mason Inlet from 23 May to 7 June 2015. An unusually early bird was at Fort Macon from 10 to 22 August 1967. There is one far-inland Coastal Plain record in the account: Goldsboro Wastewater Treatment Plant, 1–3 November 2008. It lists no mountain records.
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Two birds at Duck were unusual, but they did not exceed the state account’s published peak: three at Cape Point on 4 February 2011. The account also lists two birds on five occasions. It records nine Piedmont occurrences, from sites including Jordan Lake, Falls Lake, Pineville, Lake Norman, Lake Crabtree, and Harris Lake, with dates between 2005 and February 2024. For coastal birders, the club’s practical note is useful: individuals can remain at a site for a week or more and may be chaseable.
The wording has changed over time. Birds of the Carolinas (1980) called the bird a “very rare transient” south to the Carolina coast; that description belongs to the book and its date. The current club account describes a rare coastal winter visitor and suggests the number of reports may have risen somewhat. Those statements are not interchangeable, and neither makes the gull a routine sighting at any single town.
How do you tell a Black-headed Gull from a Bonaparte’s Gull?
In winter, focus on the bill, legs, underwing, and overall size—not on a black hood. A Black-headed Gull in December or January has a mostly white head with a dark spot behind the eye. Its dark red legs and red bill with a darker tip are useful close-up clues against the Bonaparte’s Gulls it often joins.
| Field mark | Black-headed Gull | Bonaparte’s Gull |
|---|---|---|
| Winter bill | Red, typically with a darker or blackish tip | Different from the red-tipped Black-headed Gull; compare carefully at close range |
| Legs | Dark red to bright red | Do not show the Black-headed Gull’s dark red leg colour |
| Underwing | More extensive black; the underside of the inner primaries is dark | Less black overall; the underside of the corresponding feathers is white |
| Outer wing in flight | White leading edge | Compare the whole wing pattern, including the inner primaries |
| Size | Somewhat larger | Somewhat smaller |
These distinctions come from the eBird comparison quoted in Hayward’s essay and from the identification notes at BC Rare Bird Records. That record page, citing Dunn and Alderfer (2011), gives Black-headed Gull as 16 inches (41 cm) long with a 40-inch (102 cm) wingspan, compared with Bonaparte’s Gull at 13.5 inches (34 cm) and 33 inches (84 cm). Size is a supporting clue rather than a substitute for the colour and pattern marks. The species overview also describes the white leading edge of the outer wing and the contrast in the dark underside of the inner primaries.
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Measurements vary by source and should not be averaged into false precision. Olsen and Larsson’s figures, as reported in the species overview, are 34–39 cm long, a 100–110 cm wingspan, and 166–400 g. Bird Spot’s 2024 guide gives 37–43 cm, 95–110 cm, and 195–325 g. Birdfact gives 38–44 cm for its North Carolina species line. Different sources use different figures; none changes the practical field point that a Black-headed Gull is a little larger than a Bonaparte’s.
The Duck Park Boardwalk hotspot gives birders a place to look, but identification still takes attention: the juvenile at Duck could disappear into the Bonaparte’s flock. A North American field guide such as The Sibley Guide to Birds can help readers compare the winter plumages and wing patterns; it is a general reference recommendation, not a claim about which guide Hayward used. For the red-tipped bill, dark red legs, and underwing pattern, binoculars can make details easier to assess when a bird is near enough and the light is good.
Why is the name misleading in winter?
The name describes the breeding look, not the bird Hayward’s visitors were most likely to see at Duck. The hood develops in spring and summer and is dark chocolate-brown, although it can look black at a distance. In winter, the hood is absent: the head is white with a dark ear spot. Late December and January birds should be assessed in that winter plumage, when the bill and legs are more useful than the name’s promise of a black head.
The seasonal contrast also helps explain why identification can frustrate beginners. Hayward recalled an early birding episode in which she spent more than an hour in a Walmart parking lot with binoculars and a field guide, convinced a flock of gulls looked exotic, before realizing they were Laughing Gulls. She had no camera yet and was embarrassed to tell anyone. Her anecdote is a familiar lesson in birding: an unfamiliar-looking flock is not necessarily a rare one, and common gulls change appearance with age and season.
At Duck, the expected small gull changes with the calendar. Bonaparte’s Gulls are winter birds there, while Laughing Gulls are prolific in spring, summer, and fall and much less common in winter. Hayward says people can confuse them depending on the season. In midwinter, the flock context makes Bonaparte’s Gull the likely comparison for a small Black-headed Gull; the red-tipped bill, red legs, and underwing pattern help separate the rare visitor.
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Is the Black-headed Gull rare everywhere?
No. It is widespread and common across much of its Old World range, particularly in Europe, but uncommon as a North American vagrant. The species overview describes breeding across the Palearctic from Iceland and Ireland east to Japan and eastern China, with small numbers also breeding on Canada’s eastern coast. Many birds migrate south and west; others remain in milder parts of northwestern Europe. The species is not pelagic, and small numbers winter in northeastern North America as far south as Virginia, often among Bonaparte’s Gulls. Farther south, it is a very rare transient on the Carolina coast.
The contrast across the Atlantic is striking. David T, commenting from England on Hayward’s essay, called Black-headed Gulls his country’s most abundant gull and described roosts of thousands. Bird Spot’s 2024 identification guide lists 140,000 breeding pairs and 2.2 million wintering birds in the United Kingdom; the page does not identify the survey year behind those totals. Older figures differ: Olsen and Larsson’s 2003 handbook, as reported by the species overview, gives up to 300,000 pairs in Great Britain and the Migration Atlas (2002) and Olsen and Larsson (2003) put the British winter population around three million birds. These are separately attributed estimates, not numbers that can be reconciled from the available sources.
North America’s relationship with the species is comparatively recent. A historical account summarized in the species overview dates colonization of Iceland to 1911, Greenland to 1969, and Newfoundland to 1977, with around 20 pairs breeding in northeastern Canada in the late 20th century. South Dakota Birds summarizes it as unknown in North America until the 1920s, with scattered records for decades and confirmed nesting in Newfoundland in the 1970s. The histories describe a bird that expanded westward into the North Atlantic and remains scarce farther south, rather than one that is rare across its global range.
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A local rarity is not the same as a threatened species. Birds of the World’s version 1.0 account, published in 2020, lists the Black-headed Gull as Least Concern. Bird Spot labels it Amber in its United Kingdom key facts, while South Dakota Birds qualitatively says populations appear to be decreasing despite the species remaining widespread. These are different assessments and contexts; the available sources do not provide a single global percentage decline that would justify combining them into one trend claim.
One serious event is distinct from population totals: the British Trust for Ornithology reported that more than 4,000 Black-headed Gulls had been killed in Great Britain by early May 2023 during an avian-influenza outbreak, as summarized in the species overview. Similar high mortality was reported in France, the Netherlands, Italy, and Germany. That outbreak toll is not a population estimate and does not alter the meaning of “rare” in Hayward’s Duck story.
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For a birder at Duck, the relevant rarity is geographic and seasonal: the Carolina Bird Club account says one to several birds are usually reported along or near the state coast in winter, and the species may linger long enough to be found. The pair at the boardwalk made a local winter day memorable without being evidence of a new statewide record or a global conservation emergency.
What should birders take from the Duck sighting?
Hayward’s essay is both a stakeout story and a reminder that rarity is relative. At Duck, the gulls were unusual enough to bring visiting birders to a boardwalk over the holidays. In Britain, the same species may gather in huge roosts. In North Carolina, winter is the season to look, and a flock of Bonaparte’s Gulls is a sensible place to scan.
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The best field lesson is to slow down and check several marks. The brown breeding hood is not the mark to expect in midwinter. Look instead at the red-tipped bill, dark red legs, and extent of black on the underwing, then compare the bird’s size and whole wing pattern with Bonaparte’s. The adult at Duck was conspicuous enough for its bill and legs to be noted on a checklist; the juvenile showed why a second bird can be missed even when a flock is under watch.
For birders planning a chase, the reports support a bounded conclusion: two birds were present at Duck Park Boardwalk on 1 January and again on 29 January 2026, while one adult was recorded on 2 January. The available reports do not establish their last day. Hayward’s essay says the town had not appeared in the Carolina Bird Club statistics she consulted, but the club account does not independently verify a first for Duck. Keeping those limits clear preserves what made the sighting special without claiming more than the records show.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does Chroicocephalus ridibundus mean?
The species name ridibundus is Latin for “laughing.” The genus name Chroicocephalus comes from Greek words meaning coloured head, a reference to its breeding plumage.
How old can a Black-headed Gull get?
AnAge, the Animal Ageing and Longevity Database, lists a wild longevity record of at least 32.9 years, as cited in the species overview. That is a documented maximum, not a typical life expectancy.
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It takes about two years for a juvenile to acquire adult appearance. Young birds pass through mottled brown plumage and retain marks such as a tail band and brown wing bar, which can make them harder to pick out in a mixed flock.
What does a Black-headed Gull sound like?
The species overview gives a familiar “kree-ar” call and notes that the birds can be noisy at colonies. Calls can help draw attention to a gull, but they are not a replacement for checking plumage and structure.
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