Immature Pacific Gulls

Sand islands in the Gippsland Lakes provide important resting and breeding habitat for a large range of waterbirds. While conducting monitoring surveys by boat we came across an immature Pacific Gull (Note 1) holding a small eel while being watched by Silver Gulls, Black-faced and Great Pied Cormorants (Note 2) – see following photo. Standing in the background and out of focus was a second immature Pacific Gull and a Little Black Cormorant.

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The fresh dead eel was most likely caught by one of the Cormorants as Gulls tend to be scavengers (Note 3). The second Pacific Gull suddenly took an interest in the eel and the bird in possession turned to take off – see second photo below.

A short aerial chase ensued which ended when the eel was dropped in deeper water and the Gulls lost interest in the potential feed. I suspect the two Pacific Gulls and all of the others waterbirds present were not particularly hungry given they did not show much interest in the readily available eel meal.

The following photos are cropped sections of the above flight shots showing more detail.

Notes:

(1) Pacific Gulls take about five years to reach full adult plumage. Juvenile birds are fully brown with a fully dark bill - at this stage they are sometimes miss-identified as Brown Skuas. Both birds in the photos show two colours on the bills and whitish forehead feathers so these are second year immatures.

(2) All five resident cormorant species found in mainland Australia and Tasmania can be seen on the Gippsland Lakes; they include Great, Little Black, Little Pied, Great Pied and Black-faced Cormorants.

(3) An earlier Avithera post showing a pair of mature Pacific Gulls scavenging Black Swan eggs can be seen here: https://avithera.blogspot.com/2019/10/pacific-gulls-scavenging-swan-eggs.html