A Stranger on Coney Island

One of the more interesting dynamics of bird-watching, I'm learning, is that importance is given not only to the spotting and ID-ing of individual species (causing delight if it's one you've never seen before), but also to the location in which you've found it (causing delight if it's never been seen there before). Lucky beasts that they are, most birds have the ability to literally globe trot. Many make this an annual activity through the act of migration, along epic and predictable "flyways", but migrating or not, any bird that takes to the air risks finding itself lost in any number of directions. The ones who veer far enough afield become very interesting to anyone who can tell them apart from the rest of the feathered regulars in any given area.

Last week, amid crowds of the uber-regular seagulls that speckle the beaches and boardwalks of New York's Coney Island, a stranger was spotted: if you don't know a Black-headed Gull from a Herring Gull, you surely wouldn't have noticed it, but amidst the white and grey mobs fighting for discarded french fries was a highly unusual (for the East Coast of North America) Gray-hooded Gull. Side by side, the differences in coloration between the Gray-hooded and a "basic" Gull are pretty darn obvious, but not dramatic - it would take a birder to pick this guy out... though in a place as populous as NY, it was only a matter of time.

According to the New York Times, "A photo of the bird, Chroicocephalus cirrocephalus, was first reported on July 24 to eBird.org, a Web site run by Cornell University’s ornithology lab and the National Audubon Society." From there, word fanned out across birding websites and forums the world over, and dedicated birders from as far away as Chicago made haste to the beach in Brooklyn, hoping to catch a glimpse, and hopefully a great photo, of a bird that will make many "life lists" over the course of it's East Coast vacay. The Gray-hooded Gull's native range includes South America and Africa south of the Sahara - it has been officially recorded only once before in North America, on Dec. 26th, 1998, in Apalachicola Florida. So, while it may be but a variant of one of the most common birds in the States, genetically speaking, it's a great rarity here, and those who traveled over from even extended points west still saved themselves a few thousand miles to witness such a creature this far north.


Above, THE gray-hooded gull (left) photographed amid the fried dough and pretzel carts this weekend, next to a Herring Gull (right), the most common of the gulls. Aside from the obvious grey head, notice the deep red beak and legs on the gray-hooded gull, compared to the fleshy-pink legs and yellow bill (with a distinctive red spot on it's underside) of the Herring Gull. Photo credits: Gray-headed Gull by Elliotte Rusty Harold; Herring Gull by Allison Frost.  

Assuming this bird is in fact a wild individual (as opposed to a sanctuary or zoo escapee), and only temporarily side-tracked on the shores of the Big Apple (while his internal GPS "recalculates") - may luck be with you on your long flight home, jaunty Mr. Red-legs...