Seagulls probably live longer than you think

Posted on by farlane
Herring and Ring-billed Gulls by John Dykstra

Herring and Ring-billed Gulls by John Dykstra

Recently, I was more than a little shaken to that seagulls can live for DECADES! All About Birds shares that the oldest recorded American Herring Gull was at least 29 years, 3 months old when it was seen in the wild in Michigan in 2015 and identified by its band, and they have reportedly lived as many as FIFTY YEARS in captivity. Also, while they prefer drinking freshwater, they can drink seawater thanks to special glands located over the eyes allow them to excrete the salt when they must.

The Ring-billed gull is somewhat smaller & distinguished from the Herring gull by yellow legs (instead of pinkish) and of course the black ring around the bill. Many and possibly most Ring-billed Gulls return to breed at the colony where they hatched year after year, often nesting within a few meters of last year’s nest site. The oldest recorded Ring-billed Gull was at least 27 1/2 years old, so probably be nicer to them on the beach because they will be back there for years! ;)

John took these photos mostly near Manistee. See more in his Michigan gallery on Flickr!

PS: Even though the first photo was taken way back in 2010, there’s a fair chance that one or both of these birds is still flying today!! 😳

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8 thoughts on “Seagulls probably live longer than you think”

    1. You are very welcome Jim. My son is a surfer and he was blown away that seagulls live as long as they do!! My favorite part of doing Michigan in Pictures is all the things I learn – going to try and share more like this as a personal protest against all the AI slopification going on!!

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  3. I’ve always liked Seagulls and I’ve only seen the Ring-billed gulls around here. I guess I like them since they don’t mind posing and let you get up close to them, but photos in flight, I’m not so fortunate. :) I didn’t know Seagulls lived that long and I enjoyed your other stats here as well. I ventured over to John’s Flickr site – what beautiful photos of our state. P.S. – Interestingly, I think Flickr changed their site recently. I have had a VPN and ad blocker for a while now and had to “continue just this once” to view John’s site you linked to and that’s never happened before.

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    1. Yeah I don’t have too much of a problem with them & honestly lots more respect! John is solid. Not sure what’s up with Flickr. They are owned by Yahoo but it’s probably part of the enshittification of everything!!

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      1. Yes, I feel like that too – they are actually beautiful birds, with a wingspan that surprises me when you see them on a railing, etc. … then they take off. That is something new with Flickr as it never happened before … nothing is the same anymore. I was blown away by checking out Chat GPT when Edge updated the browser recently. Supposedly Windows 12 and beyond will be so AI centered we will not recognize computers as we have always known them and I’m not sure I like that. I still have my original Windows 7 laptop bought in 2009 and it works fine!

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