Gray-hooded Gull

How to find it

Because it is a vagrant, there is no reliable place or time to look for it. The one mainland record came from the Cocoroca salt pans area of Chomes on the Gulf of Nicoya coast, so that kind of open salt-pond water and beach is the sensible place to scan. Another birding survey there found 52 species in March 2019, so the area rewards a careful look at every gull. Check small hooded gulls for a pale grey hood, red bill and legs, and white mirrors in black wingtips. Remember that out of breeding plumage the hood shrinks to dark smudges at the eye. Treat any sighting as a possible rarity and photograph it.

How to recognise it

A breeding adult shows these marks:

A pale grey hood and a grey back.

A red bill and red legs.

Black wingtips with bold white mirrors.

A dark grey underwing.

A pale eye in adults.

It is a small gull, about 38 to 44 cm long. A thin darker grey line separates the grey head from the white chest. Males and females look alike.

Outside the breeding season the grey hood is lost and only two dark smudges remain around and behind the eye. Young birds have dark eyes and a black band at the tail tip.

What it sounds like

Recording: Joaquín Krasuk, CC BY 4.0, source, read 4 Nov 2026.

Behaviour and diet

Across its range this is a sociable gull, very much so in winter, both when feeding and at evening roosts. Where feeding is good, flocks can reach hundreds or thousands.

It eats fish, crustaceans, molluscs and other water animals, and it also takes carrion. It follows farm machinery to catch insects and worms turned up in ploughed fields. These are habits of the species in general, not of the single bird recorded in Costa Rica, where no resident or breeding population exists.

Where it lives

Across its range it lives mostly on coasts and estuaries, and also on inland lakes and rivers. It is not a seabird and is rarely seen far out at sea.

In Costa Rica the only mainland record came from the Cocoroca salt pans area of Chomes, on the Gulf of Nicoya coast in Puntarenas. The earlier report comes from Wafer Bay on Isla del Coco.

When to see it

The only mainland record was photographed in mid-April, on 16 April 2019. No Costa Rican season is stated beyond that single date.

Similar birds

It looks like the Black-headed Gull, but it is a little larger. The breeding hood is grey instead of chocolate brown, the body is a darker grey and the bill is slightly longer. Its broad wings are held flatter in flight. Bonaparte's Gull is the other small hooded gull on the Costa Rican list, also accidental, and it has a dark hood where the Gray-hooded has a pale grey one.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

The official Spanish name in Costa Rica is Gaviota Cabecigris. Elsewhere in Spanish-speaking South America it is also called gaviota capucho gris or gaviota de capucho gris.

Status and conservation

The official Costa Rican list gives it status A (accidental), a rare vagrant with one documented mainland record from 2019, while the IUCN rates the South American form as Least Concern.

Photography tips

One wildlife photography guide calls the species wary. It suggests staying at least 10 m away and using a lens of about 400 mm.