Go to nearly any parking lot in the fall and winter and you can find Ring-billed Gulls. This is the most "onshore" of our local gull species. It rarely ventures even half-a-mile to sea. Adult Ring-billed Gulls may be recognized by the pale gray mantle, black wingtips with white dots in them, and generally yellow bills and feet. There is a black ring about 3/8 inch wide around the bill just back from the tip. A note of caution: many other species of gulls show a black or dark tip on an otherwise pale bill, especially in their immature and subadult stages. Be sure you see the yellow bill tip extending beyond the ring. Subadult (two-year-olds) Ring-billed Gulls look essentially like adults, but they have all black wingtips without the white spots. Juvenile or immature Ring-billed Gulls are the palest of all our local juvenile gulls. The ground color of their underparts is basically white (gray in other species) and this is rather lightly spotted or blotched with scattered dark dots. They have flesh-colored bills with a dark tip (outer 1/3), very much like the bill of a young California or Mew Gull, but these 2 have gray ground color on their underparts.

Ring-billed Gulls nest far inland on bare or nearly bare islands in large marshes and alkaline lakes throughout western North America. The nest is a scrape in the ground, usually in the open, where the nesting adult has a clear view. Nests are established and eggs are laid in April-May. Nests are in dense colonies, an average of 2 feet (range 1-17) feet apart. Clutches average 2.8-2.9 eggs.