Gone, but Not Forgotten

Finding the Laughing Gull

- By Don Reid

During the week that it spent in Mossel Bay, the gull moulted into its striking breeding plumage.

From sunrise on Monday, 7 February 2022, people started gathering at strategic spots along the shoreline of Mossel Bay in the Western Cape. Many had binoculars slung around their necks and were carrying cameras of varying sizes.

Their actions were strange. One moment they were gazing out to sea or scanning the beach and harbour with their binoculars, the next they were on the run to a nearby vantage point, hiding behind anything they could find and pointing their cameras at the object of their interest. At other times they stood around talking animatedly and checking their phones, then after receiving some signal rushed to their vehicles and drove to another spot where they repeated the procedure. This continued for the rest of the week, with the initial groups being reinforced on a daily basis by new arrivals.

The first views of the gull, in the freshwater pool on Santos Beach.

So, what was going on? It wasn't paparazzi stalking a celebrity aboard a yacht, but twitchers gathering to see and photograph the latest addition to the southern African bird list. And as luck would have it, I was initially responsible for starting the scramble to see the Laughing Gull, a first-time vagrant to our shores.

It all began with a trip to Santos beach with my daughter Geraldine and son-in-law André for a late afternoon swim on Sunday, 6 February. We parked and then walked towards the beach; ever on the lookout for birds, I noticed that there were about a dozen gulls drinking and bathing in the freshwater pond that forms in the middle of the beach at the stormwater outlet.