ID please.

[<>]

 

We are in WA now.  At Cottesloe beach, where there was lots of sea weed, yesterday, I saw an unusual bird.  It was about the same size as a sea gull, uniformly brown except for a little white down above the bill, which was straight and about 3cms long with a very slight hook at the end. It had a white semi-circle beneath the eye (eyelid?).  I think that it was possibly a young bird that had been blown in, in the latest storm which washed the sea weed ashore.  We were able to get very close.  In fact we could have picked it up. It had brown/black legs and webbed feet. 

I looked up several bird books and the ID that I have come up with is a common noddy; but it has a white head.

Any ideas? and is it uncommon this far south?  If it is uncommon, who should I contact in Perth

Yes, Barbara, I should have been carrying my camera, but I had gone to Cottesloe for a swim, not to bird watch.  Also I watched an osprey soaring above, worrying the local magpies and feral pigeons

Elizabeth