The Folk of Flagstaff Hill

[khiemtran]

Flagstaff Hill is one of my favourite places to run at lunchtime, but last week I decided to bring my DSLR there to get a closer look at some of the locals...




Just below is the lighthouse is a large rocky outcrop where all sorts of gather.



First of all, there are the ubiquitous silver gulls, which are the most common type of gull in Australia. For most people, when they think of "seagulls", they really mean silver gulls.



But if you see a flock of silver gulls around the coast, there's also a good chance there might be an interloper or two. Can you spot the one that's not like the others?



That's a crested tern. They're great divers and it's fun to watch them catching fish in the shallows.



Mr Tern having a bath in the seawater...





Here you can see some more crested terns amid the silver gulls and a pair of cormorants (possible great cormorants, but it's difficult to tell from this angle). One of the terns seems to be checking what the cormorants are doing...



Also on the rock are some massive kelp gulls, the second biggest gull in Australia. As you can see, they are about eight times bigger than the silver gulls (twice as long, twice as high, twice as wide).



One of the highlights of Flagstaff Hill is coming there on a windy day to watch the huge kelp gulls soaring.









The pelicans love to soar as well. For ungainly looking birds, they're surprisingly graceful in the air.



They like to head out to meet the fishing boats on their way in.



This largish brown bird was a bit of a mystery, but, after studying the photos, we've finally decided it's a juvenile kelp gull.







Meanwhile, down at the base of the rocks, you can sometimes spot sooty oystercatchers at work...





And when the other birds are gone, they take their place on top of the rock...

Comments

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

That tern looks very curious indeed. Is that what you Aussies call "having a sticky beak"?

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly!

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

That definitely looks like juvenile gull plumage to me. Your kelp gulls look remarkably like our herring gull (our commonest gull) and the juveniles of that species look just like your photo. How they compare in size I can't say from your photos, but the herring gull is a sizeable bird.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Hmm. It looks like they might be about the same size. I think the silver gulls are actually quite small by gull standards, so Australians are always getting surprised by the size of gulls elsewhere.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Your camera is so **fast**--that first picture looks like the Hiroshige wave, almost!

I could tell the tern in that photo by his curved beak and his jaunty tail :-)

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Terns are such fashion victims! They're the second most dapper seabirds of our shores (after the fairy penguins, of course...)