Silver Gull (Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae) [XC759067]
by James Lambert from Nightcliff, Northern Territory, Australia (call)
Silver Gull (Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae) [XC577236]
by nick talbot from Gilgai Wetland, Pilliga, New South Wales, Australia (flight call)
Breeding Season (Guide)
Mainly August - April, but anytime throughout the year.
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Nest
Usually a slight depression in the ground, lined with grass or dried seaweed. Some nests have an external layer of thin twigs and coarse grass, and are lined with finer ggrasses, while others are composed entirely of grasses.
Eggs (Guide)
2 - 4; blotched with olive and marked with black or brown; long-oval; about 53 x 38 mm. Incubation: 21 - 27 days; by both sexes.
Young
Semi-precocial. Fledge in about 28 days. Fed by regurgitation.
Subspecies
Silver Gull (Larus novaehollandiae) and Hartlaub's Gull (Larus hartlaubii), cross-regional species, and Red-billed Gull (Larus scopulinus), a New Zealand endemic (Sibley and Monroe 1990, 1993), are retained as separate species contra Turbott (1990) who include scopulinus and hartlaubi as subspecies of Silver Gull (Larus novaehollandiae), pending revision of the New Zealand CheckList.
Some consider subspecies, scopulinus, as a seperate species Red-billed Gull (Larus scopulinus).
The following 3 subspecies are recognised:
novaehollandiae Stephens, 1826 - Australia, including Tasmania.
forsteri (Mathews, 1912) - New Caledonia and south-western Pacific Ocean.
scopulinus (Forster, JR, 1844) - New Zealand, Chatham, Auckland and adjacent islands. Considered by some authors to be a distinct species, Red-billed Gull (Larus scopulinus).
The Field Guide to the Birds of Australia Pizzey, G., and Knight, E., 1997, Angus & Robertson, Sydney ISBN 0 207 19691 5
Field Guide to Australian Birds Morecombe, M., 2000, Steve Parish Publishing Pty Ltd. ISBN 1 876282 10 X
Field Guide to the Birds of Australia Simpson, K., and Day, N., 1999, 6th Edition, Viking ISBN 0 670 87918 5
Reader's Digest Complete Book of Australian Birds 1988, 2nd Edition, Reader's Digest ISBN 0 949819 99 9
What Bird is That? 1984, Revised Edition, Angus & Robertson, Sydney ISBN 0 207 14846 5
Handbook of Australian, New Zealand & Antarctic Birds 1990 - , Oxford University Press, Melbourne ISBN 0 19 553244 9
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