Audouin's Gull

Ichthyaetus audouinii

Mediterranean specialist that fishes at sea instead of scrounging garbage. The respectable gull.

Population: ~33,000–46,000 mature individuals, decreasing
Habitat: Strictly coastal and marine; breeds colonially (or singly) on rocky offshore islands, cliffs, and sandy islets generally below 50 m elevation, and forages over sheltered bays, sandy/shingly/cliffed shores, and inshore-to-pelagic Mediterranean waters; occasionally recorded at inland wetlands but rare well away from coasts.
Fun fact: Audouin's Gull crashed to roughly 1,000 pairs by the late 1960s — making it one of the rarest gulls on Earth — before conservation work (especially at Spain's Ebro Delta) drove a dramatic recovery, though numbers have slipped again since that huge colony collapsed around 2010.
Range: Mediterranean and adjoining Atlantic coasts, breeding from Portugal and Morocco east to Cyprus and Turkey (with the Ebro Delta, Spain historically hosting the world's largest colony); winters mainly along North African coasts from Libya to Mauritania and Senegal.
Diet: Fish-eating specialist, mainly small pelagic shoaling fish (sardines, anchovies, herring-type fish); often hunts actively at night and well out to sea rather than scavenging like most gulls, though it will also take small mammals and lizards ashore (and occasionally raids olive groves).
Size: 0.5 m
Wingspan: 1.22 m
Lifespan: 25 years

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