On Sunday 1/18/2004, despite the forecast of bad weather on the coast, I decided to head for the Savannah area to continue my quest for finding 200 species in Georgia in the month of January. Luckily, the forecast was wrong and it turned out to be a beautiful day on the coast both weather-wise and bird-wise. After checking out the ponds around the airport and birding Skidaway Island with Russ Wigh, I ended up on Tybee Island.

I spent a considerable amount of time scanning from the vicinity of the lighthouse and then headed north to look through the large flock of gulls that had been gathering on the beach. One of the gulls in the middle of the flock stood out because of its overall light/white coloration. It was smaller than the nearby Herring Gulls (Larus argentatus) and larger than the Ring-billed Gulls (Larus delawarensis). Of the three light colored gulls that are reasonably possible on our coast, I immediately eliminated Glaucous Gull (Larus hyperboreus) because of the small size compared to the Herring Gulls. Glaucous Gull would be larger than Herring. That left Thayer’s Gull (Larus thayeri), a very remote possibility, and Iceland Gull (Larus glaucoides) to consider as well as some kind of partial albino or leucistic more common gull.

Description:

The overall size was smaller than the nearby Herring Gulls and appeared to be a little larger than the Ring-billed Gulls, but they were farther away so it was difficult to tell how much bigger. It had a small rounded head and short neck. The head was off-white, not a pure bright white, with grayish brown streaking that started around the eye and fanned out towards the crown. The back of the head and neck were also off-white with flecks of gray brown. The eyes were very dark and the black bill was thinner and shorter than Herring Gull. At some angles and lighting the lower mandible looked a little lighter at the base.

The upperparts, including the nape, scapulars, back, rump and uppertail coverts, were off-white with varying amounts of brown feathering mottled throughout. The tail also appeared off-white, but I was unable to get a good look at it spread open either standing or in flight to see any particular pattern on top and the limited view of the underside in flight looked to be mostly white.

The underparts were also off-white with brownish feathering. They appeared to be lighter than the upperparts with the exception of the undertail coverts which were off-white with the most and darkest brown feathering that formed distinct barring. The legs and webbed feet were pale pink.

The primaries on the folded wing extended well beyond the tail and were lighter white than the rest of the body, but still had some light brown coloration. The upper wing coverts and tertials were off-white with light brown mottling. In flight, the upper sides of the primaries were very white with light brown edges, however the brown did not extend to the tips. The secondaries were also very white with some light brown edging but again this brown did not extend to the tips. The underside of all the flight feathers was very white and the under-wing coverts were mottled with light brown.

Based on the overall size of the bird compared to the other gulls and the bill size, color and structure I eliminated Glaucous Gull. Thayer’s Gull can be eliminated based on the primaries being lighter than the body on this gull and the light brown edging not extending to the tips as well as some other more subtle characteristics such as head and bill size and structure. A partial albinistic or leucistic more common gull would typically have white in places that would not normally be white; and the structure and size would still be consistent with whatever species it was. All of the field marks on this bird were consistent with a first winter Iceland Gull.

According to the Annotated Checklist of Georgia Birds, “Iceland Gull is “Accidental on Coast in winter” with only nine accepted records from the coast, although two are mentioned as possibly being the same birds as previous records. Two additional reports from the coast were unconfirmed. One other accepted record was for an inland sighting at West Point Dam.

References:

Beaton, Giff; Sykes, Paul W. Jr.; Parrish, John W. Jr., 2003, Annotated Checklist of Georgia Birds, Fifth Edition.

Sibley, David A., 2000, National Audubon Society, The Sibley Guide to Birds.

Return to Species Account Menu