An ode to a gull of distinctive hue
News item ( Northern Advocate, March 30): Nature or misadventure? Gull’s colouring debated.
An unusual-looking redbilled gull/akiaki spotted at Whangarei’s Pak’nSave supermarket carpark has shoppers wondering whether the bird is a freak of nature or a victim of pollution. Bird lover John Ecuyer is convinced the bird is an “amazing example” of melanism, an oddity of nature affected by a rare genetic trait that affects feather colouration — in this case producing a smooth transition of yellowy-brown hues. Robert Webb, bird conservationist and Whangarei Native Bird Recovery Centre manager has suggested it might be one of a group of three red-billed gulls he cleaned this year after a misadventure with a pot of old cooking oil.
Upon this creature I have mulled:
I think this sea bird has us gulled! This pouting wee fullah seems somewhat off-colour to human beings whose vision’s dulled. Instead of black and grey and white his back’s in shades are less than bright – dim, dullish – dun.
Has midday sun cast him in a different light?
Is he just a freak of nature adhering to his nomenclature as akiaki that tan and khaki improve his odds and candidature. . . for a tilt at higher things –
‘Bird of the Year’ (this time with wings) unlike that impostor that once topped the roster to bat away true avian kings?
Perhaps we’d best not carp or censure. Perhaps he’s suffered misadventure with a pot of cooking oil on which he quaffed to mar and spoil his quest to shake tag of ‘back-bencher’. For sure his rare genetic trait will lure ‘hens’ to, frenetic mate mix and match for chicks to catch the eyes of guys surprises rate. perts say it’s genuine: a bird shot-full of melanin which pigments the feathers withstanding all weathers reflecting excess haematin.* (*dark pigment)
It might have been more dire, you know: it might have been as white as snow with albinism perhaps leucism – all patchy where its privates grow.
This gull, the subject of debate will pundits one and all deflate once it confesses what’s coloured its tresses was cooking oil that queered its state.
And Robert Webb is proved, once more to be the chap who knows the score because he fondled, bonded ere the gull, laundered, wandered for morsels to a mega-store. Tony Clemow
Te Kamo
A mean council
Long-term doctor in Kaitāia purchased a section in Ahipara to build a home.
Prior to purchase he went to Far North District Council to see if there were any restrictions.
They gave him the all clear. The trees were not protected.
He pruned a pohutukawa to allow the proposed build.
Local Māori intervened, saying the tree was sacred. With complaint the police refused to uphold the law on legal title. Council refused to get involved.
Having done everything correctly, the dispute was allowed to fester for many months with occupation.
Having done everything correctly with Far North District Council sanction, they show another miserable side to offer him a fraction of the valuation of the property. Surely his family should be entitled to valuation plus compensation for the trauma that he went through.
This is a clear case of council gross meanness that follows on from their ineptitude giving him clearance. It would be a huge shame if Northland is left without such a long-term dedicated doctor as a result of a Far North District Council negative and mean action.
Bob Syron
Parua Bay