The black-headed gull (Chroicocephalus ridibundus), formerly known as Larus ridibundus, inhabits wide areas of the northern Palearctic, from Iceland and Ireland to Kamchatka, as a small species of gull. It prefers to breed in the littoral zones of larger inland waters but has increasingly also been found nesting on coasts in recent times. In northern Central Europe, the species is a common breeding bird and winters in large numbers in Central and Western Europe. The gull reaches a body length of 35 to 39 cm and a wingspan of