The Discovery
On 19 Dec 1987, while participating in the Sabine Christmas Bird Count (CBC), two parties independently encountered and photographed a dark gull close in shape and size to Laughing Gull in the Calcasieu Ship Channel in Cameron, Louisiana. Both parties, Bruce Crider and Skip Newfield in one, and Shawneen Finnegan and Paul Lehman in the other, came to the conclusion that the bird was a Gray Gull, a Pacific coastal South American species previously unknown in the United States. In fact, there were no previous records for the Atlantic Ocean. The news of the find was shared and several observers saw the bird the next morning. Thus began the long journey of this amazing record.
The Review, and an Analysis of the Review
The LBRC reviewed the record in 1989 and took issue with both the origin and identification of the bird. Gray Gull, a sedentary species that has a limited occurrence north of Ecuador, was considered an extremely unlikely candidate for vagrancy. As with many far-flung vagrant gulls, the possibility of ship-assisted travel was raised, with Panama Canal ship traffic proposed as a means to explain passage to the Atlantic Ocean. The only image provided to committee members to review was a single color slide by Lehman (above) which had also been published in black-and-white in American Birds magazine. In the slide, the bird’s legs appeared to have a purplish tint, not correct for Gray Gull, and the color of the plumage also seemed paler than expected, although the report submitted by Finnegan stated that the black legs and dark plumage noted in the field were inaccurately represented in the image due to poor lighting. The reports also mentioned a head pattern not noted in any major identification resource of the time, which Finnegan described as being like “a Common Black-headed shaped hood—only in reverse,” with the head “paler warm brownish gray—very distinctive.” Three of the seven reviewers rejected the record on the grounds of identification, (hereafter ID) and six rejected the natural occurrence of the individual (Origin). All members rejected the record on either ID or Origin.
Despite the national attention the finding had generated and the intercontinental significance of the sighting, the summary of the review went unpublished for fourteen years. When the summary was finally published in an LBRC Report in 2003, the record was appended to the summary of a similarly rejected 1996 Gray Gull record:
The lack of timely publication and the fact that the 1987 record is the only LBRC record not to receive a stand-alone summary probably accounts for the muddled citation history of this sighting in gull literature. In some cases, such as the Cornell Lab’s Birds of the World account for Gray Gull, Finnegan’s flickr page is cited as the source for information on the Louisiana sighting:
The summary attributed the delay in publication to an anticipation of receiving additional photos, although that expectation was apparently not strong enough to delay the review. The expected source of additional photos is not explained. As it was, the record packet only included one of the published photos of the bird; a photo taken by Crider and printed in the CBC issue of American Birds was not included although the accompanying text was written by two LBRC members, including the LBRC Secretary who prepared the packet for review. If the committee hoped for additional observers to contribute materials, the fourteen year lack of urgency in publishing presumably left those observers completely in the dark; indeed, when additional materials were sought for the review in 2025, important notes surfaced from an observer and long-time LBRC member who explained that he was completely unaware that the LBRC had ever been interested in additional written documentation.
The 2003 summary also introduced confusion by suggesting that the possibility of melanism was considered a decisive factor in the initial review. While melanism was in fact “brought up” during the review as noted, the subject was raised for the sake of debate by a voting member who referenced and appended a 1932 The Auk note on a melanistic Laughing Gull. However, the same reviewer, who was one of two members who stated that they had been privy to a set of slides of the bird and had compared the slides to specimens, stated that it was “hard to imagine it having the exact patterns of Gray Gull,” and voted to accept ID as Gray Gull. One other Member acknowledged the appended Auk note but focused his identification concerns instead on the unfamiliar head pattern described by observers. Thus, while the issue was considered, no member gave serious credibility to the probability of melanism as a factor in this record. It is unclear as to why this unfounded issue was given prominence in the published report, but the claim of melanism came to define this record and the fallacy subsequently made its way into gull literature.
The Record Persevered
Initially, provenance had created the strongest level of doubt among reviewers, but technically the unresolved issue of identification played a much more powerful role in blocking the record from reconsideration: While LBRC Bylaws allow Origin-rejected records to be rereviewed if a pattern of vagrancy subsequently emerges, ID-rejected records require additional documentary evidence (typically photos) to allow rereview, and even then only at the Secretary’s discretion. Therefore, even as Atlantic records of Gray Gull began to accumulate (e.g. documented sightings from the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico in 2009 and 2021, Brazil in 2019, and Florida in 2023), the claim that “Additional photos have never been received” kept the record from being rereviewed.
As backstory, the only other known images of the bird were taken by the original finder. The finder had been a member of the LBRC in the 1980s, but over time, a rift had developed between the finder and other members of the LBRC. Possibly due to this animosity, the observer submitted his photos to American Birds as CBC documentation, but apparently did not separately submit the images to the LBRC. During the initial review in 1989, two voting members noted having seen those slides but stated that the images were “eventually returned to” and “now in the possession of” the original observer. The “Additional photos” that had “never been received” noted in the published record presumably referred to this set of images. Because all copies of these images were stated to have been returned to the observer, and given the negative sentiment between the observer and the committee, later LBRC members felt the chances of these photos ever being seen by the committee were essentially zero.
Anecdotally, over the years different accounts of these photos had emerged within the LBRC. Many members from subsequent cohorts believed that the photos had been lost on the return mailing from American Birds. Oddly, Finnegan stated on her flickr account that she also believed that her original report form had been lost (stating online that “I would be interested to know if the LBRC ever got Paul's and my documentation that we had submitted at the count down. From what I remember they never did.”). How the story of lost material originated or spread is a mystery. Recurring requests to revisit the record were denied by the Secretary due to the absence of the “additional photos,” with the statement that the record could only be revisited if the original observer submitted his photos. On one side of the equation, most members felt that these pictures no longer existed. On the LBRC side of the equation, the record was effectively administratively killed.
However, with the emergence of the internet and the rise of social media in the decades since the review, a new and more publicly accessible avenue opened for a hearing on this bird. Finnegan occasionally posted Lehman’s slide to online ID sites in an attempt to arrive at a definitive identification (e.g. https://www.flickr.com/photos/22812788@N08/8368611773/in/photostream). Unfortunately, the same anomalies of head pattern and leg color that had caused confusion among the initial LBRC reviewers continued to stymie online experts. Printouts later found in the gull’s LBRC folder show that an unknown LBRC member had monitored one such online discussion, in 2001, where the leg color as seen in the Lehman slide was considered a barrier to definitive ID. While a copy of Finnegan’s LBRC report would have clarified that leg color had been reported as black in the field, no assistance or input into the ID thread appears to have been provided by the monitoring LBRC member.
Revisiting the LBRC Record
In early 2025, both a former and a present LBRC member independently came upon the flickr post by Finnegan with the full color scan of the Lehman slide. Both were intrigued and sent the link to the new LBRC Secretary with the suggestion of revisiting the record.
The issue was brought before the committee at the 2025 LBRC meeting. In the discussion regarding the record, the published account of the record raised questions about the initial review. The statement that there was an “anticipation that additional photographic documentation would be submitted and the record re-circulated to at least resolve the issue of identification,” suggested that the original voters might have been operating under the impression that the initial review was somewhat provisional. More importantly, the committee considered whether the improved gull ID resources that had emerged since the original review might themself constitute additional material and allow definitive identification of the existing image. On these grounds, the committee voted to formally revisit the record with the hope of finding definitive identification points.
Unexpected Developments
While the Secretary was seeking the original review packet in preparation for the rereview, an unanticipated turn of events occurred. A former member of the LBRC that had voted in the original review revealed having kept a copy of the entire set of the images by the original observer, presumably since 1988, the year before the original review. The copies had reportedly been made as backups in case of shipping loss, but neither the duplicated images nor mention of their existence had ever been shared with the LBRC publicly or privately; indeed, the member had stated to the committee in 1989 that the photos “were now in the possession of” the original observer. The former member volunteered the images to the committee for the rereview, but unfortunately, within a day the Secretary was told that photos had gone missing; this is an unfortunate loss of irreplaceable data for the committee and the broader scientific community, especially because the photos were emphatically described as being "really good" by the former member.
Another turn of events led to a decidedly more positive development for the record. Because the Louisiana birding community had been so small and tight-knit during the 1980s, the number of candidates that might have chased the bird was extremely small; canvassing surviving birders that had potentially viewed the bird was fairly easy. After hearing about the rereview, long-time birder and LBRC veteran Phillip Wallace located his field notes from the morning after the discovery and shared the notes with the committee. His notes describe the bird in flight and at rest and provide important information about the bird that was a matter of mystery or debate before, or that corroborated the details of other observers.
Shawneen Finnegan also contributed more material, most notably a scan from the 1987 American Birds CBC issue. The regional summary included a photo from the “missing” series of images of the bird that had been omitted from the initial review. Because CBC issues are not available online and are hard to find in hard copy, the committee did not have access to this material. While only adding one photo to the existing review packet, this valuable resource literally doubled the number of images available to reviewers and provided an excellent complement to Lehman’s slide and to the submitted written descriptions. Additionally, the regional summary, penned by the two original LBRC reviewers who had access to the full suite of images, stated that the identification of the bird “appears to be unassailable,” another strong circumstantial boost to the record.
The Rereview
The resubmitted record was accepted in its first circulation. Some members noted that the description of a light-colored head set off by a darker broad hindneck (likened to the head of a Black Vulture by Wallace) that had posed problems during the first review is visible in present-day online Gray Gull photos (e.g. https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/608630661) and some field guides today. All of the other features that were well-described in the reports match Gray Gull. Voters also felt that the growing pattern of vagrancy erased any doubts as to provenance, especially given that 1986-1987 were El Niño years, and a hypothetical link between El Niño and vagrancy in Gray Gull has been proposed.
With the vote, the long odyssey of the Louisiana Gray Gull that had stretched across thousands of miles and almost four decades was, hopefully, complete.
Conclusions
Had all the available materials related to this sighting been made available to reviewers at the outset, this record almost certainly would have been correctly identified as a Gray Gull when it was first reviewed in 1989. Provenance would have remained an issue, but later extralimital discoveries of Gray Gull would have certainly led to the timely acceptance of this record as the first for the United States. However, the evidence provided to reviewers was limited, and the reviewers were properly cautious in rejecting the identification given the evidence provided and the ID resources of the time.
While the unanimous Reject vote (in this case the result of a combination of either Reject Origin or Reject ID votes) in the first circulation spelled the end of the first review for this record, the Bylaws at that time actually offered a simple means for recirculating the record:
LBRC Bylaws 1979.VI.E.3(g): Regardless of whether or not a "final" decision is reached during the first circulation (but not during the second or third circulation or at a meeting); the Secretary may recirculate a record if he feels that Committee's comments might alter the decision."
In light of the fact that two voting members provided key insights in their comments that were not previously available to the rest of the committee--namely their description of photos unseen by the rest of the committee, and more importantly their comparison of the photos to specimens--it is highly likely that the committee would have voted to accept Origin had this recirculation option been exercised by the Secretary. If the opportunity to examine the photos themselves had then been shared, it seems certain that ID would have been accepted.
Regrettably however, this record seems to have been a lightning rod for the worst possible luck at every stage of its travels.
While the final outcome seems incontrovertible, there is an unfortunate consequence. The Florida sighting that had been considered the first United States record should now become known as the second United States record, in essence depriving the Florida discoverers of the excitement that the Louisiana observers were long denied. Hopefully the untold numbers of birders who have been able to enjoy the Florida Gray Gull for several years will serve as some consolation for that turn of events.
Epilogue
As if on karmic cue, on 25 April 2025, while the record of this potential first U.S. record was out for LBRC rereview, another Gray Gull was discovered and beautifully photographed on Holly Beach, Louisiana, about a dozen miles from where the first bird was discovered. Ironically, based on plumage and its history of movement along the northern Gulf Coast, the Holly Beach Gray Gull is felt by some to be the same bird that provided the first accepted record for the United States, in Florida in 2023.
