Lava Gull Larus fuliginosus

The lava gull is an endemic Galapagos seabird (Harrison 1983). The photograph is of a first-year individual in the fish market at Puerto Aroya, Santa Cruz Island. There are no recent estimates of the number of nesting pairs but Snow and Snow (1969) estimated about 300-400 pairs might nest in the islands based on the number counted along 35 miles of coastline. It does not wander far from shore. Lava Gulls nest as single pairs often in sheltered locations near coastal lagoons.  They lay clutches of two eggs. One pair incubated their eggs for 32 or 33 days, and young were fully fledged about 60 days later (Snow and Snow 1969). Lava gulls are present along the shore of all the Galapagos Islands and nest on Santa Cruz, Baltra (and Seymour), Isabela, Santiago and Genovesa (Swash and Still 2005).

References

Harrison, P. 1983. Seabirds. Houghton Mifflin, Boston.

Snow BK and DW Snow. 1969. Observations on the lava gull. Ibis 111:30-35.

Swash, A., and R. Still. 2005. Birds, mammals and reptiles of the Galapagos Islands. Yale Univ. Press.

November 2009