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Certain words in the English language represent animal sounds: the noises and vocalizations of particular animals, especially noises used by animals for communication. The words can be used as verbs or interjections in addition to nouns , and many of them are also specifically onomatopoeic .
The general pattern of plumage in adult gulls is a white body with a darker mantle; the extent to which the mantle is darker varies from pale grey to black. A few species vary in this, the ivory gull is entirely white, and some like the lava gull and Heermann's gull have partly or entirely grey bodies. The wingtips of most species are black ...
Breeding adults have a white head, rump, tail, and underparts and a pale gray back and upperwings. The wingtips are black with white spots known as "mirrors" and the trailing edge of the wing is white. The underwing is grayish with dark tips to the outer primary feathers. The legs and feet are normally pink but can have a bluish tinge, or ...
The summer adult's body is white apart from the dark grey back and wings and black head. Its wings are much darker grey than all other gulls of similar size except the smaller Franklin's gull, and they have black tips without the white crescent shown by Franklin's. The beak is long and red. The black hood is mostly lost in winter.
The wings are proportionally longer with more black on p5-p8 than L. c. canus with narrow white spots forming a conspicuous "string of pearls". p4 has black markings which are rare in L. c. canus. First-year immatures have a whiter head, belly and underwings than L. c. canus at the same age, with an unmarked rump and more defined black tail band.
A few birds, no more than 1 in 200, have white primary coverts, which form a showy spot on the upper wing. This gull is unlikely to be confused with other species as it is the only white-headed, gray-bodied gull found on the west coast of North America. [3]
The meanings of the shapes are defined by the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (ColRegs). Day shapes from ColRegs Day shapes are black in color and their sizes are determined by the ColRegs; for example, the size of the ball is not less than 0.6 metres (2.0 ft).
The adult great black-backed gull is fairly distinctive, as no other very large gull with black on its upper-wings generally occurs in the North Atlantic. In other white-headed North Atlantic gulls, the mantle is generally a lighter grey and, in some species, it is a light powdery grey or even pinkish. [11]