Provenance of this bird (also known as Grey-headed Gull) is unknown, as the species is normally found in parts of South America and Africa, and the only other known documented record in North America was in 1998... in Florida! The existence of this gull came to light when, on July 24th, Sara Burch and Jacob McCartney photographed and reported an unusual gull among the Laughing Gulls at Coney Island Beach in Brooklyn. Their report was submitted to Cornell's eBird database. The photo was sent to Brooklyn birder Doug Gochfeld on the 28th, and Doug identified it as a GHGU. Shane Blodgett refound on the gull on the 29th, and word of this mega-rarity quickly spread in the birding community and beyond.

My photos were taken on Saturday afternoon, July 30th. The bird was favoring the yellow poles (possibly used for volleyball nets?) that were on the beach, across the boardwark from the Wonder Wheel, just east of the W 12th Street entrance. The plastic palm tree sprinkler that others have referred to is a few hundred yards west of this location. The gull continued there through Wednesday afternoon, August 3rd. It was seen briefly early Thursday morning, according to a third hand report, but no one has reported it since then.