A rare laughing gull was spotted at Cape Kidnappers two weeks ago. Photo / Colin Lindsay
A rare laughing gull was spotted at Cape Kidnappers two weeks ago. Photo / Colin Lindsay
Bird enthusiasts are fawning over a rare species spotted at Cape Kidnappers by an eagle-eyed tractor driver.
Gannet Beach Adventures owner-operator Colin Lindsay was taking a tour on October 11 when he noticed an "odd" looking bird.
"It was browsing for food by the rocks with the red-billed gulls, so we thought rather than being a different bird species, it was offspring - a red-bill had mated with something else," he said.
"That was the only reason we took the photos - not realising the significance of it."
Lindsay said the bird had "striking features". "It's almost as if someone has tipped it upside down in a paint tin and it just has a completely black head and the white around the eyes was really striking."
Gannet Beach Adventures owner/operator Colin Lindsay spotted a rare laughing gull at Cape Kidnappers. Photo / Paul Taylor
However, it wasn't until he couldn't find any mention of the unusual bird in their many books on the topic that he enlisted the help of local "experts".
They then sent it over to a local company based in New York, Wrybill Birding Tours NZ, who identified the bird.
"To me it brought home that if you see something out of the ordinary, just photograph and call 'cause you just never know."
Te Papa curator vertebrates Dr Colin Miskelly said the first New Zealand sighting of the laughing gull was in December 2016, 7km west of Opotiki in the eastern Bay of Plenty.
New Zealand's only known laughing gull was pictured with Cape Kidnappers resident red-billed gulls. Photo / Colin Lindsay
It stayed there until January 2017, but is believed to have been seen on the east coast late last year.
"At the time it was turning up at the same places fairly regularly, so a lot of bird watchers managed to see it, but since then there is no single place where you can go to see it."
The first Australian record of a laughing gull was at Cairns in 1987.They have also turned up in French Polynesia, Samoa and Pitcairn Island.
Miskelly said the only two options it could be were a laughing gull, or the closely related Franklin's gull - but its beak was too long and too dark to be the latter.
"The most likely explanation is that it is the same bird that somehow managed to fly all the way across the Pacific and hasn't bothered trying to go home."
The laughing gull mainly breeds in North America and migrates to Central and South America.
Miskelly said coastal areas such as Ahuriri Estuary and the Clive River Mouth would be best suited to the bird.
"For all you know there is a family out there who have been feeding it fish and chips for the last six months, because most people just think it is an odd gull."
Department of Conservation science adviser Igor Debski said the bird is "almost certainly a long-staying bird that is the first and only New Zealand record".
