Dear Birders,
Saw the gull this morning between 6:00 and 7:00 am. Very well behaved as it sat
on a pile just off a wharf on the Cooktown waterfront. I was able to get within
a couple of meters and took heaps of photos but unfortunately none were flight
views as it remained resolutely land bound while I was watching it. It did
deposoit on the top of the pile but it was just too far off the wharf to
prevent me scraping it up in the hope that I would therby get a sample of its
DNA in shed cells!
Getting there was a real saga because of the rain mentioned by Lloyd Nielsen
and others - unfortunately I set off to drive before those postings came
through. I took two Cairns birders and we left Cairns at 6:00. We got through
Mt Malloy no trouble but hit floodwaters at McLeod River causeway (15km
north of Mt. Carbine). The water was way over the road (at least waist deep and
probably shoulder deep in places. We headed back to Cairns and I found that
there was a flight at 4:15 with Skytrans (www.skytrans.com.au) but it was fully
booked. Thinking I was snookered I drove to Newell Beach looking for Red-rumped
Swallow (no luck) when I got a call to say thee was a seat available on the
flight. Only problem was that I would have to see the bird before 7:00 am
because I had to catch the early flight back from Cooktown in order to catch
the late afternoon Cairns to Sydney flight I had a non-refundable ticket on!
Thought an hour of daylight on Monday afternoon and an hour on Tuesday morning
should be enough.
Then the rain came down and,to cut a long story short,the flight left Cairns
for Cooktown at 7:30 pm not 4:15 pm - NO Monday daylight! It all depended on
the 1 hour window on Tuesday morning. Fortunately I had made a booking at the
Seaview Motel in Cooktown which is directly across the road from the wharf. I
went down to the wharf on Monday after I arrived in the vain hoe that the dird
woulfd be displaying in the wharf lihgts! Tried again at 5:30 am - still dark
and not a gull of any description in sight. at around 6:00 as it got light a
number of Silver Gulls turned up and then to my absolute joy there it was!
Sitting on the outrigger of a fishing trawler. I rushed back to the motel to
get the scope - walking round in the morning gloom with a scope over my
shoulder was even too naff for me!). Got back and the bird had defongerated
(Dooly should really have included this word from his dad's dictionary in the
second book as well as the first! It is very satisfying to tell oneself that
"The bugger has defongerated" when the sought after bird vanishes!).
Fortunately I caught up with it again 100 metres to the East at the
aforementioned wharf.
The locals were all very friendly and very interested in the gull. Wanted to
know if it had been determined what it was, where it comes from etc.
I would strongly recommend that birders fly in from Cairns to Cooktown while
the weather remains unsettled. The bird looks very comfortable. The locals are
feeding it fish scraps etc and I suspect it could be there for a while.Seaview
motel is comfortable and convenient but not needed if one flies on the very
early flight in one morning and back to Cairns that afternoon. There is a bus
from the airport to the wharf for all Skytrans flights and takes people from
the town to the airport for departing flights. The driver is a reasonably
knowledgeable birder and very friendly.
best regards
Peter Marsh
Birchgrove NSW
0414810426
==============================www.birding-aus.org
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