There’s a celebrity in our midst — and it’s not one of Geraldton’s acclaimed authors or acting talents, but a rare type of gull.

The distinctive vagrant bird is a black-headed gull, very common in parts of Europe and Asia but practically unseen in Australia.

According to experts, the bird hasn’t been seen in WA since 1991 and never this far south.

Eager bird-watchers known as twitchers have travelled from Perth and even other States to catch a glimpse of Geraldton’s newest celebrity since it was initially spotted on Tuesday last week.

Tegan Douglas, a twitcher who works at BirdLife Australia, drove up from Perth on Sunday to catch a glimpse of the gull.

“Seems like a ... slightly mad undertaking. Driving eight hours return with the hope that we see a bird that may or may not be there,” she said.

Luckily, Dr Douglas managed to spot the bird on the foreshore. She said it was “tough to tell” why the bird had ended up there, but there were theories it had been blown off-course by the storm at the end of May.

Local bird-watcher Stephen Pidgeon didn’t have to travel too far to spot the vagrant, and joined a group of twitchers from Perth and interstate to view the bird from the foreshore.

“It’s a bit of a privilege to see something that rare, especially where it is, for sure. And to photograph it is really good,” he said.

Mr Pidgeon has been photographing birds for around eight years, and said it was “all good fun”.

Dr Douglas said the gull’s hangout spot with his seagull friends was an “excellent opportunity” to get a look at a rare bird.

“This isn’t a bird that’s at a really remote location, hiding in really thick vegetation. He’s spending a lot of time just sitting out on the foreshore, hanging out with regular silver gulls,” she said.

It’s unknown how long the bird will stay in Geraldton, or if it will leave at all.

The bird has even become the subject of online memes, making an appearance on satire social media page The Bell Tower Times.

There are strains of avian influenza present that have yet to land in Australia, and Dr Douglas thinks it unlikely the black-headed gull has brought disease to our local seagulls.

“To have it turn up and still looking healthy and happy and foraging with our silver gulls, it’s pretty unlikely that it’s got anything,” she said.