Rare Black-Headed Gull Spotted in Western Australia, Thousands of Kilometres Off Course

AI Summary

A lone black-headed gull has been spotted in Western Australia, thousands of kilometres off its usual migratory flight path from Europe to Asia. The rare sighting has drawn birdwatchers from across the country.

The Unexpected Arrival

A lone seabird has caused a stir in the nation’s birdwatching community after landing on the Western Australian coast, thousands of kilometres off its usual migratory flight path.

The black-headed gull, which usually flies between Europe and Asia, has been spotted in the coastal city of Geraldton.

The Rare Sighting

It was first reported last Tuesday by a local Facebook group, after a severe storm front battered south-west Western Australia.

The unassuming bird has drawn a number of twitchers (keen birdwatchers who will often travel long distances to see a new species), with at least one travelling from the east coast to catch a glimpse of the avian visitor.

The Twitchers' Quest

“Most people don’t think of birdwatching as being an extreme sport,” Tegan Douglas of Birdlife Australia says. “But the twitcher is kind of the extreme end of enjoying birdwatching as a hobby.

For Douglas, news of the black-headed gull was enough to set her on the longest twitch of her life. She coordinated with a friend to carpool the four-hour, almost 400km drive from Perth to Geraldton.

Hanging Out with the Locals

Despite being far from home, the black-headed gull is living a remarkably ordinary life on the Geraldton foreshore. Douglas observed it blending in with flocks of local silver gulls, “fossicking for chips” and “just doing regular seagull things”.