ML111206161

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Observation details

***RARE - first found Rene Wendell this morning and seen by many observers. Mostly brown sulid with heavy long pointed bill, pale yellow/Ivory at base where it meets crown and side of face. Young bird with smudgy brown underparts, starting to show characteristic brown breast, clean white belly and white wing linings. In flight shows sun bleached feathers on nape and wrists of wing, underside has dark tertials and patagium contrasting with pale inner wing. Periodic flights, lifting easily off water and circling at around 50 feet, then plunge diving, completely submerging for a second or two before popping back to the surface, with at least one successful catch in 40 minutes. Otherwise sat still on the water paying no mind to crew boats passing within 20 feet. Construction worker fishing here and listening to hair metal radio station takes a look through the scope, says this is the mystery bird he saw on the other side of the lake a week ago while working on a dock, so perhaps it has been here a while. "I showed it to my brother and he said it might be a blue herring, but I seen a blue herring before and this was no blue herring." Very poor photos attached; I'm sure others will post better shots from today.

Technical information

Model

Pixel

ISO

50

Focal length

4.7 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire, auto

f-stop

f/2.0

Shutter speed

403/100000 sec

Dimensions

889 pixels x 630 pixels

Original file size

120.01 KB