Silver Gulls breeding in Sydney Harbour at Pyrmont

[Mark Young <>]

Hi Andrew,

A couple of weeks ago there was 60+ Silver Gulls roosting at Long Reef, along with over 120 Crested Terns.

In amongst the gulls I saw 11 with some juvenile feathers. 6 of them were the same as of this bird http://bit.ly/rI65bb

I wondered at the time if they were local birds, or if they had come from afar. I guess if they are breeding in the inner city it might well be possible that they are local, but how could you tell for sure?

I also got to see some of the Terns mating. This happened 6 times in the span of an hour. On 3 separate occasions a Crested Tern would fly in with a small thin fish. Once it was chased by a Silver gull, another time it was crowded by 3 other Crested Terns drooping their wings and following it around, (going on the colour of the feathers it looked to be not an adult), and I can't remember what happened to the 3rd one.

Regards,
Mark

On Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 2:47 PM, Andrew Taylor <> wrote:

I revisited the Silver Gull colony in Pyrmont on Saturday by kayak.
I spotted about a dozen gulls too young to fly as we cruised around.
I would expect there would be at least as many again not visible.
A number of adults appear to be sitting on nests.

As I understand it, every year a few  Silver Gulls nest on pilings and
moored boats in quieter parts of Sydney Harbour like Homebush Bay,
but this is the first time larger numbers have bred in Sydney since
1992 when there was a colony in derelict barges in Rozelle Bay not
far from Pyrmont.  There is of course a large colony on  Five Islands
off Wollongong.

Andrew Taylor
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