Good morning(?) all,
I recently mentioned some controversy on the identification of a gull
seen near Nhulunbuy, NT. The site was actually Melville Bay, on
the Gove Peninsula, in October 1974. It was published as a
Dominican Gull (ABW 6:5 pp162-4), then re-identified from the
photos by someone else and published as Lesser Black-backed
Gull (ABW 7:1 p11), then later re-evaluated by others and
published again as Dominican Gull (ABW 8:4 pp.135-136). Anyone
interested can form their own conclusions from reading these
articles. Much later than that (in about 1987) John McKean and I
spent a fruitless day checking all of the known gull sites around
Darwin after being told by a visitor that he'd seen a 'black-backed'
gull near the Esplanade in the city. Unidentified gulls are not new
to the NT, even sightings supported by photographs, extended
observation and 'expert' evaluation.
To my knowledge the only confirmed sightings of (identified) 'rare
gulls' in the NT are Sabine's (two records though the most recent
one, a few years ago, should perhaps be considered unconfirmed),
Black-tailed (one record) and Black-headed (one record). The
current gulls are unlikely to be any of these and would presumably,
if identified, represent a new bird for the NT, perhaps even for
Australia.
The NT may be the only state/territory in the country that doesn't
have an Official Bird List with some form of verification required to
add new birds to it. I am attempting to rectify this. However, in the
meantime there are species claimed (e.g. Dusky Woodswallow,
Purple Heron, Scarlet Honeyeater, Long-tailed Cuckoo and others
just in the last twelve months or so) that may or may not be
legitimate records but which may find themselves 'on the list' by
default without any kind of 'objective appraisal' of the record. There
may be some who think that doesn't matter, or who shudder at the
thought of submissions, appraisals, rarity committees etc., but ...
I'm not one of them. Watch this space in the (hopefully) near future
for my definitive List of the Birds of the NT.
Happy birding
Niven
Birding-Aus is on the Web at
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