Larus pipixcan

The Franklin's gull breeds in Utah, particularly in the wetland marshes surrounding the Great Salt Lake. You can see them now as they stage for migration along the Antelope Island Causeway.

They are sitting along the causeway, bobbing their heads, bills open, as they catch brine flies. It is quite a comical sight as well as a spectacle to see so many of these gulls in one spot.

Franklin's gulls have a black head with white crescents above and below their eyes, with a red bill. The neck, chest and belly are white. The wings are slate-gray, with white tips on the secondary flight feathers.

The gulls will soon begin to molt into winter plumage, which will turn the black head into white, with a dusky hood covering its eyes down to its nape.

Migrating Franklin's gulls leave Utah for Pacific coasts from Central America to points south. They will return here in the spring.

Franklins are colonial nesters. Both parents build the nest in the alkali bulrushes and cattails of the Great Salt Lake wetlands. The female incubates three eggs 18-25 days. The semiprecocial young (hatching with eyes open, down-covered and able to leave the nest soon after hatching) are fed by both parents.

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* BILL FENIMORE is owner of the Layton Wild Bird Center, www.wildbird.com/layton.