On Friday, November 12, 2004, Eric Beohm and I decided to bird several locations. We began at the West Point Lake Dam (Troup County) where we had 4 Bald Eagles in one tree and 39 Common Loons. We were about to leave when we both noticed a gull floating on the water. This gull had the tertials/secondaries the same light color as the back, and since we had scanned thousands and thousands of Herring Gulls in the past, we knew that we should look at it a lot closer. It flew and landed on the boom, and we saw it spreading its wings and could tell that it was definately a first/winter Thayer's Gull as there were two Herring Gulls beside it for comparison. Eric took several pictures of it swimming inside the boom and we also confirmed all the fieldmarks, but were unable to capture the spread wing in the pictures. The bird then flew out of sight until it was just a speck in the western sky. We then went on to bird Lake Eufaula and Lake Seminole the next day where we had some more super rarities, including a female Black-throated Gray Warbler.

Since nobody had relocated the Thayer's Gull and I knew that better photos of the wing were probably needed, I returned on Friday, November 19th, and relocated the bird around 8 a.m. It was sitting on the concrete structure of the dam, and I was able to obtain the photos that were needed and got the word out. It is always great when a "Georgia first" decides to hang out in an easily accessible birding location and be seen by many observers. This also happened with the Yellow-billed Loon. Many birders were able to find and photograph this very cooperative rarity the next day.

Thayer's Gulls breed in the Arctic and usually winter on the Pacific coast of North America. A few are sometimes found in winter on the Great Lakes, rarely farther south. Many reports of Thayer's Gulls out of range are controversial, and many turn out to be Herring and Iceland Gulls. Luckily, this bird was a classic textbook Thayer's Gull and exhibited every fieldmark.

Description-

• The overall coloration varied due to the lighting conditions. Sometimes it would look brownish or tan and other times it would appear sooty brown and sometimes even whitish.

• The bill was shorter and thinner than a Herring Gull and was all black, and in overall size the bird appeared smaller than nearby Herring Gulls.

• The head was very rounded and the eye was more in the center of the head.

• Most importantly, in flight the primaries were pale brown and showed a pale edge to every feather. The primaries, secondaries, and tail were about the same shade of pale brown, and were too pale for a Herring Gull and too dark for an Iceland Gull. The underside of the primaries were white and translucent with a darker trailing edge. When the bird was sitting with the wings folded, the tertials/secondaries were the same shade as the back and only checkered on the outer edge. The primaries were darker brown and had noticeable pale crescents to the tips. There was also a neatly checkered appearence to the wing coverts.

Additional photos of this bird may be found at the following URLs:

http://eaglecreek4.tripod.com/georgiabirdingandnature/id15.html
http://eaglecreek4.tripod.com/georgiabirdingandnature/id18.html

This bird potentially represents the first documented occurrence of this species in Georgia, something that has been long overdue for the state.

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