[By Chuck Almdale, photos by Grace Murayama]

Grace and Larry have been censusing Western Snowy Plovers at Malibu Lagoon (Surfrider Beach) and Zuma Beach and watching them run around for longer than I can recall — I’d guess about 20 years. Of course they see lots of other interesting things from salps to By-the-Wind Sailors to Western Gulls playing tennis to Osprey catching fish to Botta’s Pocket Gopher out for a swim to the occasional odd sandpiper or gull.

This time it was a Franklin’s Gull, not a particularly common gull at the lagoon. According to my lagoon census spreadsheet, I’ve seen it there a grand total of…ta da!…twice. Wow. On 4/24/88 and on 3/25/90. That’s over 35 years since the last one, and out of 421 total visits to the lagoon, or a whopping 0.475% of visits.

Like I said — not particularly common. Too bad, as it is a very attractive gull in breeding plumage, as you can see. If you want a good chance of seeing one, I suggest the lakes and marshes on the southern Canadian prairie or Montana or North Dakota in May or June.

You can see by their migration map below that they normally stick to the central flyway and avoid California altogether, not that there’s anything wrong with California; it’s just not on the route. It does show up more often in SoCal than I implied above, but it’s usually on our inland lakes or reservoirs (which in SoCal are generally the same thing).

It’s a small gull, typically 14.5″ long, wing span 36″. Compare that to the Western Gulls surrounding it below, which are 25″ long, wingspan 58″. The Franklin’s is only 10.5″ shorter, but it appears so diminutive that the Western Gull behind it could swallow it and barely burp. Among the common SoCal gulls, only the 13.5″ Bonaparte’s is smaller. Among all North American gulls – and don’t hold your breath waiting for any of these to show up at the lagoon – only the Sabine’s (13.5″), Ross’s (13.5″) and Little (11″) are smaller.

According to eBird (below) it’s been reported at Malibu Lagoon only 27 times, mostly in April-May, which makes sense as that’s when it’s migrating northward, and only a couple of times July – October when its migrating south. However, historically, it has shown up at dozens of different SoCal spots.

The photo below reveals that the bird has some oil on the right side of its breast. I don’t see it on the wing itself. As the bird is even more uncommon over the Pacific Ocean than over SoCal, it’s anybody’s guess where it got oiled. Perhaps in southern San Joaquin Valley where there are still oil wells pumping away.

All photos above were taken by Grace Murayama on 26 June 2025.