Little Gull
Reports
On Thursday 9 April 2026 in the afternoon there was a report of a Little Gull on the sea off the north end of Pirnmill. Also present were other gull species and auks. In the air and on the water it was noticeably smaller than Black-headed Gull. Also on Thursday 9 April there was a report of a 2nd winter Little Gull with Kittiwakes behind a trawler. This was seen from ferry on Brodick to Ardrossan crossing. Two Little Gull records in the same day is exceptional for this is an uncommon irregular visitor to Arran.
The Little Gull (Hydrocoloeus minutus) is best distinguished by its exceptionally small size (24-28 cm), dark smoke-grey underwings, lack of black wingtips (in adults), and buoyant, erratic flight. It often appears "dumpy" or short-necked compared to the larger, longer-billed Black-headed Gull. The selection of Little Gull photographs all taken by Dennis Morrison demonstrates the variation in hood development as well as the variation in plumage with age and time of year.
Little Gull breeds mainly inland from the subarctic to temperate forest and steppe zones from Fennoscandia eastwards to Siberia and northern China. Winters along the coasts of of western Europe, the Mediterranean, Black and Caspian seas with a few in China . first bred in Canada in 1962 small numbers wintering along Pacific and Atlantic coasts.
In Scotland Little Gull is principally a passage migrant, uncommon in spring but more frequent in autumn, with small numbers remaining through the summer and the winter. It is seen most in coastal waters and more occasionally inland. Small numbers have been in potential breeding sites, but no confirmed breeding. The first record was in the Solway firth in the autumn of 1824.
Round the islands in the Firth of Clyde in the last forty years there have been less than thirty records. Twenty one of these records have been off Arran. In the 1980s there were four records and in the 1990s nine records. Eight of those records were from the concentrated efforts of one observer in Pirnmill between 1990 and 1991. Most records have been of one or two birds. This century, before the April records this year, there have only been three Little Gull records on Arran, one in Whiting Bay on 27 June 2005, one in Machrie on 16 July 2011 with the last record two in Whiting Bay on 2 September 2013.
Always worth checking gull flocks, particularly movements of Kittiwake in spring and autumn, for this diminutive Little Gull. It is easily overlooked.
