A lone seabird has caused a stir in the nation\u2019s birdwatching community after landing on the Western Australian coast, thousands of kilometres off its usual migratory flight path.<\/p>\n
The black-headed gull, which usually flies between Europe and Asia, has been spotted in the coastal city of Geraldton.<\/p>\n
It was first reported last Tuesday by a local Facebook group, after a severe storm front battered south-west Western Australia.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe birds migrate from Asia to Europe, so it is a long way from where it should be,\u201d says Steve Pidgeon, a Geraldton local of 42 years and member of Birdlife Midwest-Geraldton.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey haven\u2019t had a reported sighting since 1991, so [it\u2019s] pretty rare.\u201d<\/p>\n
The black-headed gull takes flight in Geraldton. Photograph: Steve Pidgeon<\/p>\n
While weather events frequently blow birds outside their normal territory, experts say this arrival is unusual due to how far south it travelled. The closest regular populations of the black-headed gull are in India, Japan and the Philippines.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe quite often see rare or vagrant species turn up after severe weather events,\u201d Tegan Douglas of Birdlife Australia says. \u201cThe thing that makes it a little bit unusual with the black-headed gull is that this storm front mostly came from the south-west, and this observation is already at the extreme southern end of its distribution.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe next southernmost record of that bird in Australia was in Broome [about 1,500km north-east of Geraldton] and that was 35 years ago, back in 1991.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes you expect birds to overshoot or get caught up in a weather system and end up a little bit far from home, and that\u2019s probably what\u2019s happened here.\u201d<\/p>\n
The twitchers<\/p>\n
For the uninitiated, the arrival of such a rare bird triggers a phenomenon among enthusiasts.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost people don\u2019t think of birdwatching as being an extreme sport,\u201d Douglas says. \u201cBut the twitcher is kind of the extreme end of enjoying birdwatching as a hobby.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are people who are so competitive about having the most number of birds on their list for the year or for the country that they will drop everything, feign sickness to get off work, book flights, and drop a whole heap of cash.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The gull was seen \u2018just doing regular seagull things\u2019. Photograph: Steve Pidgeon<\/p>\n
The journey was made easier by a collaborative network of local birdwatchers. Rather than \u201cgatekeeping\u201d information, Douglas says WA birdwatchers use WhatsApp chat groups to coordinate the search, tracking the bird\u2019s movements across the coast in real-time.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was someone who flew over from the east coast, and people here were offering them a lift to get up to Geraldton to try and cut costs,\u201d she says. \u201cThe birdwatching community is really supportive of each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Douglas arrived in Geraldton she received a notification about where to travel to reach the elusive gull.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe searched those beaches and searched around the port, and then we ended up at the foreshore in town, and that\u2019s where it was. So convenient.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hanging out with the cousins<\/p>\n
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, \u201cfossicking for chips\u201d and \u201cjust doing regular seagull things\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really similar in size to our silver gulls, and it\u2019s also really quite similar in habits,\u201d she says. \u201cWhere the black-headed gull normally comes from, there\u2019s lots of other species of gull that it hangs out with.\u201d<\/p>\n
The \u2018rockstar\u2019 gull has made a lot of fans among birdwatchers. Photograph: Steve Pidgeon<\/p>\n
Pidgeon, who went looking for the gull on Saturday after receiving a tip-off from a friend, managed to photograph the rare visitor for his Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are a lot of birdwatchers that have travelled from all over the state and Australia to see this bird,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n How long the rogue traveler decides to stay on the coast of midwest WA remains a mystery. Because it is in an unfamiliar environment, it doesn\u2019t know the local threats or predators, though Douglas says the \u201crockstar\u201d is \u201cpretty lucky because it\u2019s landed in with a bunch of cousins\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople behaving respectfully around wildlife, and around particularly rare wildlife, is what definitely helps them stay longer,\u201d Douglas says. \u201cThere\u2019s no need for that with this gull. It will sit quite happily on the beach, like 10 to 15 metres away from people. It\u2019s really chill.\u201d<\/p>\n