non NZ birds mistakenly shown as NZ birds....

[Jan]

Black-headed Gulls?? Such a long time since I've seen any, but that's them in winter garb.

[andrewcrossland]

Yep, Black-headed Gull. We thought we almost had one at the Avon-Heathcote Estuary/Bromley Oxidation Ponds many, many years ago and I recall a large-scale local twitch on a heavy foggy morning - which made the search hard, but Don Haddon found the bird in the mist and took a series of photos that showed it was only a juv Red-bill with abberrant aysmetrical smudgy black feathering on its head. A great diappointment!
I was partly compensated a few years later when I found Sumatra's first confirmed Black-headed Gull, but have always hoped to find NZ's first one since then!! A vagrant could eventually make it down here so I hope the newspaper photograph generates some positive karma?!!