 Breeding evidence |
 Relative abundance |
 Probability of observation |
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Click on plot to view table of mean abundance
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Number of squares
Long-term BBS trends
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-7.89 (-11.7 - -4.15)|
Mean abundance (number of birds detected per 5 min. point count) and percentage of squares occupied by region Bird Conservation Regions [abund. plot]
[%squares plot]
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Atlas Results
Atlas results coming soon
Excerpts Adapted from the Birds of Saskatchewan:
"A small gull, almost dove-like, Bonaparte's can be overlooked in a flock of Franklin's Gulls, unless one notes the smaller size and the prominent white wedge on the forward edge of the wing. In flight and on the water they seem more buoyant than Franklin's? (Roy 1996). This gull breeds in the boreal forests from Alaska to southcentral Quebec. It winters, mainly coastally, from southern British Columbia, the Great Lakes, and New England south to northern Mexico, the Bahamas, and Greater Antilles (AOU 1998).
Bonaparte's Gull usually breeds singly or in a small colony in a bog on the edge of a lake in the boreal forest, where it places its flimsy nest in a conifer. On the southern fringes of the boreal forest, where bogs are scarce, it has used such unorthodox sites as a bulrush marsh (Symons 1968), the mudflats of a dry slough (Lamont 1980), and a spruce farmyard shelterbelt (Edwin Billeter in Hooper 1992). Nonbreeding habitat includes the larger lakes and reservoirs throughout the province.
Bonaparte's Gull is a fairly common summer resident of the subarctic and boreal regions; a fairly common summer visitant and transient in the parklands, nesting rarely; and a fairly common transient in the grasslands (Smith 1996).
Original text by Brenda Schmidt. Text adapted by Daniel J. Sawatzky
Read more about the Bonaparte's Gull in the Birds of Saskatchewan here.
Recommended citation: Latremouille, L. M. 2025. Bonaparte's Gull in Latremouille, L. M., S. L. Van Wilgenburg, C. B. Jardine, D. Lepage, A. R. Couturier, D. Evans, D. Iles, and K. L. Drake (eds.). 2025. The Atlas of the Breeding Birds of Saskatchewan, 2017-2021. Birds Canada. Saskatoon, Saskatchewan https://sk.birdatlas.ca/accounts/speciesaccount.jsp?sp=BOGU&lang=en [09 Nov 2025]
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