Black-legged Kittiwake

How to find it

Only two records exist for the country, so a beginner should not plan a trip around this bird. Both were of lone birds on the Tortuguero beach. If you walk that beach, any resting small gull deserves a second look. Check the legs first, because short black legs help separate it from similar small gulls. In adults, look for a plain yellow bill as well. Remember that a kittiwake on land may be a bird in trouble, so keep a respectful distance.

How to recognise it

This is a small gull with short black legs. Here is what to check, one mark at a time.

Breeding adults: a thin yellow bill and only a small amount of black on the wingtips.

Nonbreeding adults: the same yellow bill, plus a dark smudge behind the eye.

Immatures: a bold M pattern across the upperparts, a dark mark across the back of the neck and a black band at the tail tip.

In flight it looks sleek, with long narrow wings and a short notched tail. It is larger than a Bonaparte's Gull and slightly smaller than a Ring-billed Gull. The Spanish name Gaviota Tridáctila refers to the tiny or missing back toe, so only three toes show on each foot.

What it sounds like

Recording: Anastasiia Samokhvalova, CC BY 4.0, source, read 4 Nov 2026.

Behaviour and diet

It is a gull of the open sea for most of the year. It comes to the coast to nest on cliffs and cave walls, and touches land for little else. Unlike many gulls, it feeds almost only at sea and rarely on the shore. A kittiwake on a Costa Rican beach is therefore far from its normal home. Both Costa Rican birds were alone. The 2009 bird was resting on the sand at the river mouth, and the 2014 bird was found on the sand, too weak to fly.

Where it lives

Across its range this is a small sea-going gull that breeds in arctic and subarctic regions across the Northern Hemisphere. In winter it usually stays across the North Atlantic and North Pacific, and it rarely reaches the tropics.

In Costa Rica it has no regular habitat. Both records come from the Caribbean coast, on the beach at Tortuguero, Limón, including the beach at the mouth of the Tortuguero river.

When to see it

Both Costa Rican records fall in the northern winter and early spring: 26 March 2009 and 24 January 2014. Both were on the Caribbean coast at Tortuguero.

Similar birds

Young kittiwakes can be mistaken for young Little Gulls and for Sabine's Gulls of any age. The kittiwake has a broader black W across the wing and more black on the primaries. Bonaparte's Gull, Little Gull and Short-billed Gull are also listed as look-alikes. In Costa Rica, Bonaparte's Gull is also listed as accidental (A), while Sabine's Gull is listed as M, a migrant.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

The Costa Rican list gives the Spanish name as Gaviota Patinegra, which was set as the standard name in the 2017-2018 list update. The official list site also gives Gaviota Tridáctila for the same bird, a name that refers to the tiny or missing back toe.

Status and conservation

The official Costa Rica list marks the Black-legged Kittiwake as A, accidental, while the IUCN lists it globally as Vulnerable.