ML283274841

Observation details

Light/Intermediate morph juvenile: -- body mostly dark above, paler lower breast & belly (in bright light, when it banked up looked almost white) -- when floating, head and neck appeared paler & more rufous than folded wings/back -- short central tail projections (broadly rounded and nearly square--blunt nubbins) -- double flash of white on underside of wings (though, interestingly, each underwing was distinctive) -- broad and well-defined barring near vent and on undertail coverts -- white on primary shafts seemed confined mostly to their bases when seen from above (the white being thicker there, forming a whitish patch) -- bill long, with a nasty little hook on the business (transactional) end (which sometimes looked darker, when the light was right) (Gods bless the camera and scope for allowing me to see these features! No wonder you never see jaegers painted on cave walls...). Seen flying, floating, and kleptoparasitising unfortunate California gulls (so cool). Got a wonderful sequence of photos of a dogfight which ended in the gull dropping its mouthful of landfill filth. Spent my entire time lazily watching from the gazebo on the eastern great pond. Over the hour I was there, the jaeger could nearly always be seen easily from the Gazebo mound, either flying or floating. Seen by many since Bryant found it on the 18th.