To many people, gulls are dirty, pesky thieves that seem to appear from nowhere to steal our seaside fish and chips – but to the Nyoongar they play an important spiritual role that dates back to the end of the Ice Age.
Nyoongar tradition tells of the time before the sea levels rose, some 7500 years ago, when Rottnest and Garden islands were coastal hills. The Nyoongar believed that the spirits of unborn children waited for their mothers in special places such as lakes and outcrops so, as the seas rose, these "spirit children" were cut off from any chance of finding a mother and being born into the real world.
Seabirds - particularly Djenark, the silver gull - maintain the spiritual link between Nyoongar country and the spirits trapped on the islands and beneath the sea, by flying between the coast and the islands.
When a gull is seen washing its beak in the river’s fresh water it is said to be releasing the spirits it has gathered at sea back into the landscape so that they can at last find a mother and fulfil their destinies as human beings.
Perhaps the best known Australian sea bird, the silver gull has a strong pecking order – the "top gull" often seen making frantic efforts to chase all other gulls from a food source.
An aggressive and hardy scavenger, it has adapted well to civilisation, and, given the chance, thrives around rubbish dumps and sewage outlets, picking up a variety of nasty diseases, including salmonella, earning them a reputation as "rats of the sky".
It also enjoys a bath in our reservoirs and is attracted to fishing boats and insect-luring street lights.
In its natural state it seeks out colonies of breeding terns, where it steals eggs and chicks.
In the Perth area gulls are most numerous within 30km of Fremantle and become scarcer away from the islands it needs for breeding, which include not only Rottnest and Garden islands but just about every smaller island from Penguin Island in the south to Lancelin Island in the north.
On Carnac Island their eggs and chicks are the main food source for tiger snakes, nearly all of which are blinded by attacking gulls at an early age but still manage to find and eat their favourite food using their keen senses of smell and heat sensitivity.
Seen singly, in pairs or in flocks of up to 300 – sometimes up to 5000 when flying to their roosts – silver gulls breed from mid-March to mid-December, building a nest of seaweed, small sticks and feathers in a shallow scrape in the ground.
In this the hen gull lays, one to three pale brown to dark olive-green eggs, blotched with dark brown or black.
DID YOU KNOW?
Australia was once home to a giant flightless bird that was much bigger than today’s emus and cassowaries.
Standing three-metres tall and weighing in at 500 kilos, Dromornis inhabited subtropical open woodlands and was probably carnivorous.
Although it was not as tall as the now-extinct four-metre moa of New Zealand or the prehistoric elephant bird of Madagascar, this Australian giant was heavier than any known bird – extinct or otherwise.
