Dubai: A black-headed gull had birdwatchers in disbelief last week, after it turned out to be a rare and almost unheard of visitor to the Middle East.
The Franklin's Gull was spotted, or twitched in birder-speak, by Reza Khan, Specialist, Wildlife and Zoo Management, Public Parks and Horticulture Department from Dubai Municipality, during one of his routine field surveys.
His sighting is the first record of a Franklin's Gull in the UAE. Typically this bird is known to live and breed in the central provinces of Canada and adjacent states of the northern USA. It is migratory, wintering in the Caribbean, Peru, Chile and Argentina. It is known to wander as a vagrant to northwest Europe, south and West Africa, Australia and Japan, said Khan.
Khan saw the bird near Fujairah Port beach on Tuesday. "Suddenly my attention was drawn to a gull that did not match the colour of the other gulls," said Khan.
He made a record of it on the UAE bird watching site uaebirding.com, maintained by Tommy Pedersen, another avid birdwatcher.
Pedersen and other birdwatchers confirmed the bird was a Franklin's Gull. The last recorded sighting of the gull in the Middle East and North Africa was in Luxor in Egypt in March.
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