Thank you to all the people who replied. I visited the gull again for an
hour this afternoon, and I am now 99.999% convinced that it is a Silver Gull.
I quickly found it in the same place again. Does this suggest that many
gulls are resident at a location? The Black-headed Gull in Broome several
years moved around a bit, but always returned to the sewage ponds (nearly
always the same pond).
I tried a few times to make it fly. It did so but never in company with
other gulls to compare. However, it looked to be the same wing span as a
Silver Gull. Certainly not dramatically larger.
It fed in the shallow water by stamping its feet to stir the mud, just as
many other Silver Gulls were doing, and as recently described in a
discussion thread on birding-aus.
It normally spent its time slightly separated from all the other gulls, but
then all of a sudden it adopted a stretched out position with neck down and
head up and followed an adult Silver Gull along the shore and it was
'mewing'? like a juvenile. The adult called raucously back and did not feed
it even though the immature put its bill very close to the bill of the
adult. The yellow billed immature kept following for a while before
resuming feeding.
As for being common (1 in 5), I have spent a lot of time scanning flocks of
gulls for something different, as Franklin's Gull seems to always turn up
each year in the south west. The yellow on this bird stood out very
clearly, and I am sure that I would have noticed it if I had seen it in the
last two or three years. There are a few gulls that have a yellow mixed
with black on their bill, but their legs are either reddish or dark.
The yellow was more of a very pale orange when I checked today.
Thanks again for all the comments.
____________________________________________________________
Frank O'Connor Argyle Diamonds
8C Hardy Road PMB 11
Nedlands WA 6009 West Perth WA 6872
Phone +61 8 9386 5694 +61 8 9167 1445
ICQ 14655047 Fax +61 8 9167 1438
Email
Birding WA http://www.iinet.net.au/~foconnor/
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