Larus dominicanus
Kelp Gull at Sorell, TAS
Identify this sighting
| Larus dominicanus | 28 Jan 2025 | Liam.m | ||
| Larus dominicanus | 24 Jan 2025 | BenW | ||
| Macronectes halli | 11 Jan 2025 | BenW |
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User's notes
Two huge birds resting in Orielton Lagoon as we drove past. They were a lot larger than the kelp gulls in the vicinity and had uniformly dark plumage, but apart from that I didn't notice much at the time. Looking at the photos they seem to be giant petrels, but I am open to other suggestions as it would be a very weird location for this genera.
4 comments
Liam.m
wrote:
11 Jan 2025
Could be Skuas. Have been seen in the area before. Wrong shape for giant petrels in my opinion. Interesting how they were in Orielton Lagoon
BenW
wrote:
24 Jan 2025
@Liam.m The regions' ebird moderator flagged these birds as young kelp gulls. I'm not entirely convinced since the plumage and size seemed wrong, but given that is the expert advice I have updated this observation accordingly.
Liam.m
wrote:
28 Jan 2025
Honestly Ben, that was my first impression, however I went off of your observation re size and colour. I know the Tassie moderator fairly well, and he knows his seabirds so we’ll go with that. I’ll leave it as Kelp Gull for now, but let me know if you’d prefer that I left it inconclusive due to the distance.
BenW
wrote:
28 Jan 2025
No worries, I really wasn't sure what the birds could be so I appreciate the effort to identify them!
Location information
- Places Sorell, TAS
Sighting information
- 2 Abundance
- BenW Recorded by
Collections
- BenW NatureMapr Larus dominicanus Other Waterbirds (Crakes, Grebes, Gulls and Terns) Water birds Birds
Species information
- Larus dominicanus Scientific name
- Kelp Gull Common name
- Sensitive
- Non-local native
- Non-invasive or negligible
- Up to 77.7m Recorded at altitude
Record quality
Quality score
3 / 7
- Images or audio
- Verified by an expert moderator
- Description
- More than one media file
- Nearby sighting(s) of same species
- GPS evidence of location
- Additional attributes