So many, but they all took off except this one!
Fyi, it’s called a “black-headed gull”.
And “Lachmöwe” in German does not mean “laughing” gull either, but “puddle” gull, (Lache im Sinne von Pfütze, kleines stilles Gewässer)
Edit: well, egg on my face. Its latin genus name is ridibundus, meaning laughing, and the German name is a transliteration of that. So it’s a false false friend that I (and other biologists I know) seem to have fallen for. Wikipedia references an ornithological work from 1971 for the “laughing” interpretation.
TIL
I don’t know German, sorry! My bird science friend called it a laughing gull so that’s what I’ve called them now!
Curious. Maybe they are called that in some regions after all.
Edit: see parent comment, the following apparently is false.
It’s just that “Lachmöwe” is a notorious false friend in German, hence my assumption.
Now I know a false friend in a different language!
This is the laughing gull I know of! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laughing_gull
The bird was seen in New Jersey, so it’s probably the L. a. megalopterus!
oh no
So this one is actually called in english what the other is called in both sc. latin and german - and they even look similar enough.
So many, but they all took off except this one!
I think it just wanted to savor the joke…?
