1st record for California
  (first for Pacific Coast south of Washington)

photographs taken by Cin-Ty Lee
These photographs can be used for educational purposes,
but cannot otherwise be reproduced without my permission.
 
 
 

On Friday, January 5, 1996, at approximately 1100, Joel Weintraub discovered a first-winter Ivory Gull at the mouth of San Juan Creek at Doheny Sate Beach in the city of Dana Point, Orange county (33.5 N).  Weintraub initially discovered the gull resting near the shoreline approximately 150 yards south of the mouth of San Juan Creek (his account is in Weintraub and San Miguel, 1999, The first record of Ivory Gull (Pagophila eburnea) in California, Western Birds 30:39-43).  At about 1330, while I was examining an adult Lesser Black-backed Gull (Larus fuscus) present at this site since November (1995), Weintraub brought my attention to the gull. I promptly took twelve photographs using a Nikon 2130 mm lens with a 2X teleconverter. During this time, other birders in the immediate vicinity were notified of the Ivory Gull.  At about 1400 Jim Pike reported the Ivory Gull to southern California’s “BirdBox” and phone calls were made to other birders. By sunset many other observers had arrived.  Rob Hamilton reported on the BirdBox that the gull was still being seen under flashlight up until about 2300 that night.  However, to the dismay of hundreds of birders who showed up at dawn the next day, the gull could not be refound.  This brief sighting is the first record of the Ivory Gull in California, not only representing the second record along the Pacific coast south of British Columbia, but the southernmost sighting of this bird in the world.  No doubt, it was one of the most sensational vagrants ever to occur in California for the few birders fortunate enough to witness it.  While the twelve photographs are on record in the California Rare Birds Records, these photographs have never been published and have only been seen by a select few.

A personal account
     When J. Weintraub and I ran back to the Ivory Gull, we found it resting by itself just above the shoreline, appearing fatigued.  It would occasionally bob its head and sit with the entire length of its tibia resting on the ground, a behavior which most observers believed were signs of exhaustion. It was extremely tame, allowing observers to approach within five feet.  On several occasions, the gull alighted in response to approaching joggers and dogs. But each time, it flew  for only a few hundred feet paralleling the shoreline before coming to rest again. By late afternoon, the gull had moved to the north side of San Juan Creek and its condition had significantly deteriorated.  One wing was drooping and it was clearly unable to fly. By sunset, Douglas Morton noted that the gull was being pushed back and forth by waves, although it was still alive.
     The gull was approximately the size of a Mew Gull, although there were no other birds nearby for direct size comparison.  It had a round and slightly bulbous head, reminiscent of a dove.  It had a hunched posture due to its short neck, and it had an elongated body shape due to its long wings, long tail, long primary extension, and proportionately short legs.  Overall, the bird appeared “tail-heavy”.  In flight, the gull appeared to have broad wing bases and long wings.  Its flight behavior was moderately buoyant, lying between the extremes of a Bonaparte’s Gull and a California Gull.
 Its bill was small and evenly tapered to a pointed tip. The base of the bill was grey-blue and the tip was pale yellow, grading into grey-blue near the gonydeal angle. The feet and tarsi were jet black and appeared proportionately thicker than those of gulls of the Larus genus.  Its tibias were covered by white feathers almost down to the joint.
     The entire bird was immaculate white except for distinctive spots and regions of black on the face, wings, and tail. The facial area between the ey and the bill was discolored by splotchy black feathers, particularly in the loral and moustachial areas and, to a lesser extent, in the chin and lower forehead regions. The gull’s black eyes were bordered by a thin ring of black feathering which extended to a tapered tip just behind the eye.  From a distance, the gull appeared to have a contrasting black mask. The rest of the head was immaculate white except for small spots of gray on the nape, crown, and auriculars.  These appeared to be local exposures of dark basal feathers or remnant patches of younger feathers.  The upper, median, and lower wing coverts were tipped with black, giving the gull a delicate spotted appearance from a distance. The secondaries were immaculate white and were not tipped with black.  The primary feathers were tipped with black, as were the two alula feathers.

An informal discussion
     The Ivory Gull is an holarctic breeder, inhabiting icebergs and drifts. It breeds within the arctic circle south to northern Baffin Island. Known breedinglocalities include the Canadian Arcitc, northern Greenland, Spitsbergen, Franz Josef Land, Novaya Zemlya, and Svernaya Zemlya (Cramp and Simmons, 1983; Harrison, 1983).  In North America, its has bred at Symour Island, Ellesmere Island, Devon Island, and Brodeur Peninsula (Godfrey, 1986).  Post-breeding dispersal begins in July through September (Harrison, 1983).  It winters primarly in Arctic waters over drift ice and along the edges of pack ice in the northern Atlantic and Chuckchia and Beufort Seas. It is a regular late winter and early spring visitor to Newfoundland and Labrador, where several hundred have occasionally been recorded. It is also a regular winterer south to the gulf of St. Lawrence and a rare straggler to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick(Harrison, 1983).  It is a regular vagrant in recent years south to Denmark, France, Great Britain, Ireland, Hokkaido, Ontario, and Quebec (Godfrey, 1986).
 In the United States, it is a very rare but regular winter vagrant to the northeastern Atlantic coast andGreat Lakes region, with most records occurring between December and February in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey (Granlund, 1992; Green and Janssen, 1975; Veit and Petersen, 1993). Pacific coast records are scarcer and include four from southern and southeastern Alaska (13-14 April, 1963; 1 May, 1963; 7 November 1975; 13 July, 1976), two from British Columbia (September, 1889; November, 1897), one from Tagish Narrows, Yukon Territory (21-24 Nov, 1999) and one from Washington (20 December, 1975, at Gray’s Harbor) (Roberson, 1980).  Recent interior sightings include one on a reservoir in Iowa from 24 De to 1 Jan (1991), one in Springfield, IL on 1 Jan (1991), on ein Chicago, IL from 25 Dec to 2 Jan (1992) (Goetz, 1992; Peterjohn, 1991, 1992).  Other recent U.S. sightings compiled from the web include: Grand Isle, VT (4 Jan, 2000), Portland, ME (Jan-Mar, 1997), and a remarkable record from Virginia (12 Sep, 1998).

Selected references
Cramp, S, and Simmons, KEL, eds. 1983. The birds of the western Palearctic, vol. III. Oxford Univ. Press, NY.

Godfrey, WE, 1986, The birds of Canada. National Museum of Canada, Ottawa, Canada.

Goetz, R. 1992. Illinois. American Birds 46:1029-1030.

Green, JC and Janssen, RB. 1975. Minnesoata Birds. Univ. of Minn. Press, MN.

Granlund, J. 1992. Western Great Lakes Region. American Birds 46:266-270.

Harrison, P. 1983. Seabirds: an identification guide. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston.

Peterjohn, BG. 1991. Middlewestern Prairie Region. American Birds 45:277-282.

Peterjohn, BG. 1992. Middlewestern Prairie Region. American Birds 46:270-274.

Roberson, D. 1980. Rare birds of the west coast of North America. Woodcock Publications, Pacific Grove, CA.

Veit, RR and Petersen, WR. 1993. Birds of Massachusetts. Mass. Audubon Soc., Lincoln. MA.

Weintraub, J. and San Miguel, M. 1999. The first record of Ivory Gull (Pagophila eburnea) in California. Western Birds 30:39-43.