The North American American Herring Gull is large; adults have a gray back and wings, a white head and body, and pale legs. Young birds take several years to acquire adult plumage.
Adults have a gray back and wings, a white head and body, and pale legs. Young birds take several years to acquire adult plumage.
On Appledore Island off Maine, researchers studied 25 nesting American Herring Gulls that had been banded earlier. They compared four conditions as a person walked near a nest: wearing a bicycle helmet, carrying the helmet, wearing a grey baseball cap, or wearing no headwear. Each gull experienced several of the conditions during the breeding season.
Across 98 trials, response scores were about 1.6 points lower for a cap or no headwear than for a worn helmet, and about 1.1 points lower when the helmet was carried. The gulls had previously encountered helmet-wearing researchers during capture and banding work. The different responses show that the way an object appeared in context was associated with how nesting gulls reacted to people.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
At Appledore Island, 25 banded nesting gulls showed the strongest responses when a person wore a bicycle helmet; responses differed when the helmet was carried or a cap was worn.