<
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jun/08/elusive-gull-drifts-thousands-of-kilometres-off-course-to-australia-turning-birdwatching-into-extreme-sport>
"A lone seabird has caused a stir in the nation’s birdwatching community after
landing on the Western Australian coast, thousands of kilometres off its usual
migratory flight path.
The black-headed gull, which usually flies between Europe and Asia, has been
spotted in the coastal city of Geraldton.
It was first reported last Tuesday by a local Facebook group, after a severe
storm front battered south-west Western Australia.
The unassuming bird has drawn a number of twitchers (keen birdwatchers who will
often travel long distances to see a new species), with at least one travelling
from the east coast to catch a glimpse of the avian visitor.
“The birds migrate from Asia to Europe, so it is a long way from where it
should be,” says Steve Pidgeon, a Geraldton local of 42 years and member of
Birdlife Midwest-Geraldton.
“They haven’t had a reported sighting since 1991, so [it’s] pretty rare.”
While weather events frequently blow birds outside their normal territory,
experts say this arrival is unusual due to how far south it travelled. The
closest regular populations of the black-headed gull are in India, Japan and
the Philippines.
“We quite often see rare or vagrant species turn up after severe weather
events,” Tegan Douglas of Birdlife Australia says. “The thing that makes it a
little bit unusual with the black-headed gull is that this storm front mostly
came from the south-west, and this observation is already at the extreme
southern end of its distribution.
“The next southernmost record of that bird in Australia was in Broome [about
1,500km north-east of Geraldton] and that was 35 years ago, back in 1991.
“Sometimes you expect birds to overshoot or get caught up in a weather system
and end up a little bit far from home, and that’s probably what’s happened
here.”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
