black-headed gull

noun

1. any of several gulls having a dusky or black head, as Larus ribidundus of northern Europe and Asia.

Word History and Origins

Origin of black-headed gull¹

First recorded in 1865–70

Example Sentences

The six main UK gull species - the black-headed gull, common gull, Mediterranean gull, lesser black-backed gull, herring gull and great black-backed gull - are all declining and either amber- or, in the case of the herring gull, red-listed.

From BBC

In ‘Watership Down,’ I mapped the physical movements of twenty-two rabbits and one black-headed gull.”

From Wall Street Journal

This black-headed gull caught Eve Tucker's eye as it sat in the middle of the extraordinary patterns in the water.

From BBC

The Black-headed Gull is one of our commonest species.

From Project Gutenberg

Now Mr. Henry Seebohm was a mighty ornithologist, and the most indefatigable birds-nester at home and abroad who ever lived, and, having read often before, and now again, all he has to say of the nesting places of all kinds of gulls claimable by Great Britain, I am convinced that this claim set up by "Murray," perhaps on the word of some local fowler, cannot be maintained either in relation to the Black-headed Gull or any other kind of gull or tern that breeds in England.

From Project Gutenberg