On a cold and rainy January 24, 2000, Lydia Thompson, Steve Holzman and Anna Collins located a first year Glaucous Gull while participating in the annual Georgia DNR Winter Shorebird Survey.

This bird eluded many birders who went to look for it and its smaller, rarer (by Georgia standards) cousin, a first winter Iceland Gull, first located on January 21, 2000, by Lydia Thompson.

Obviously, this bird did not elude the cameras of Pierre Howard and Earl Horn, who found the bird again on January 30, 2000.  The bird allowed close approach, allowing the photographers to snap full-frame shots of the bird through the day's foggy beginning.

Although the Georgia Ornithological Society Checklist and Records Committee has recently removed Glaucous Gull from the Review List, this species is still rare enough in the state to bring out birders from miles around.

This species is most likely to be found during the winter on Georgia's barrier islands.  The Annotated Checklist of Georgia Birds (1986) lists this species as "accidental in the Savannah-Tybee Island region", with records in Feb. 1931, Apr. 1931, May 1951, and Jan. 1962.  There is also an offshore record from Feb. 1983.  There have been a couple of inland sightings of this species since the publication of the Annotated Checklist of Georgia Birds in 1986, the last being a first winter bird at West Point Dam in early February 1999.

Interestingly, a Glaucous Gull was also reported on the same day that this bird was originally found on Sapelo I. by Paul Johnson, who was also participating in the Winter Shorebird Survey.

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