Sabine's

A form of Sabine's gull — A small gull, Xema sabini, breeding in the Arctic and migrating south in autumn.

Meanings

nounSabine's (plural Sabine's)
  1. abbreviationellipsisEllipsis of Sabine's gull.
    3 more examples

    Well, the basic flight pattern of juvenile Kittiwake and Sabine’s Gull are indeed very similar. I defy any sea-watcher to deny – hand on heart – that he hasn’t strung the odd ‘Kitti’ in his time … even if his conscience got the better of him before he actually claimed a Sabine’s. […] I also knew I had never seen a Sabine’s – until that moment. […] It wasn’t a Kittiwake – more like a Little Gull in fact – but it was, without doubt, a Sabine’s.

    1994, Bill Oddie, “Simply the Best: Scilly”, in Follow That Bird! Around the World with a Passionate Bird-Watcher, London: Robson Books, →ISBN, page 39

    On a pelagic trip to Stellwagen Bank off the Boston coast, I watched a group of this type take a humpback whale in stride, get mildly stirred by the schoolmarm’s jaeger, and merely glance at a shearwater. But they changed their tune when a Sabine’s gull emerged from a flock of unremarkables. “A Sabine’s!” yelled one. “I can’t believe it!” She rummaged her checklist out of her backpack.

    2000, Ann Taylor, “Watching the Watchers”, in Watching Birds: Reflections on the Wing, Camden, Me.: Ragged Mountain Press / McGraw-Hill, →ISBN, page 8

    But it has been pointed out that the courtship displays of the swallow-tailed gull, easily observed on the Galápagos, differ considerably from those of Sabine’s gull. Did a Sabine’s flock once colonize the Galápagos and fail to migrate north? If not the Sabine’s, which species was the ancestor of the swallow-tailed gull?

    2002, John Kricher, “All the Birds Were So Tame”, in Galápagos (Smithsonian Natural History Series), Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, →ISBN, page 123

Synonyms & antonyms

Cite this entry
APA

Sabine's. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Sabine's

MLA

“Sabine's.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Sabine's. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Sabine's,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Sabine's.

Source: Sabine's on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.