It breeds in colonies on arctic coasts and tundra, laying two or three spotted olive-brown eggs in a ground nest lined with grass.

[3] Sabine's gull is now the only species placed in the genus Xema that was described in 1819 by the zoologist William Leach in an appendix to Ross's account of the voyage.

On the basis of this the two species were often thought to be each other's closest relatives, a hypothesis ruled out by a number of behaviour and ecological differences.

This species is easy to identify through its striking wing pattern, though at long range it can be confused with immature black-legged kittiwakes.

Young birds have a similar tricoloured wing pattern, but the grey is replaced by brown, and the tail has a black terminal band.

[7] Sabine's gulls breed in the Arctic, with a near-circumpolar distribution across northernmost North America and Eurasia.

[2] During their flight south, the birds spend significant time (typically around 45 days) feeding offshore in the Bay of Biscay.

[14][15] Most of the western North American and Siberian populations winters at sea in the southeast Pacific Ocean, heading to islets and outcrops off of the South American west coast from the Galápagos Islands to northern Chile, where a consistent food supply is nourished by the cold waters of the Humboldt Current.

In the breeding season, the gulls pursue a range of freshwater and terrestrial prey on the tundra (and within boreal river deltas, estuaries and coastal wetlands), including both terrestrial and aquatic beetles, springtails, craneflies, mosquitoes, midges, flower flies (Syrphidae),[10] molluscs, insects, arachnids, water bugs, various invertebrate larvae, crustaceans, fish, as well as nestling birds or unhatched eggs.