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I apologise if this email offends anyone but just
having returned from Ashmore having seen three new birds for Australia as well
as three other BARC species, and faced with a barrage of emails, I've
decided to reply to many with this one email. Incidentally, although new
for Australia, this was not one of them!
Photographs of a large perched gull resembling an
adult Kelp Gull taken at Broome in July by Hendrik Reers have recently been
circulating. There is now some concensus, Danny Rogers, Killian Mullarney &
myself, that the bird is a Lesser Black-backed Gull. My reasons
include long wing projection beyond tail, tiny mirrors, narrow white tips to
secondaries, comparatively slender bill without a hook, red spot on gonys a
different shade and postioned towards the rear rather than towards the front as
in Kelp Gull, and slightly greyish shade to most of upper-parts.
And today, Ian McAllan drew my attention to
Recovery Round-up in the latest Corella, September 2005, 29(3)
75, which reports a Lesser Black-backed Gull recovered dead on South Island,
Cocos, on 25.09.1959, banded in Finland on 13.07.1957! This record was
discovered by Mark Clayton while researching recent records for
Cocos.
Mike Carter
30 Canadian Bay Road
Mt
Eliza VIC 3930
Ph: (03) 9787
7136
Email:
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