ML33139481
Contributor
Date
Location
- Age
- Not specified
- Sex
- Not specified
Observation details
Notes from Tony Leukering's submission to the CBRC. Record accepted as 2001-199. Chris Wood, Doug Faulkner, and I chased after the Pomarine Jaeger that Nick Komar had found two days earlier. We arrived at about 07:05 and spent some time looking for the beast. Finally, Doug found it flying at the north end of the reservoir. We watched if for quite a while until we just had to leave to get to work. The bird divided its time of our observation about equally between flying around/chasing gulls and swimming serenely, but attentively, among the Mallards, which were slightly larger than it in length. This bird, obviously a large, bulky, powerful jaeger, was a light-morph that appeared about as largeas the Ring-billed Gulls it often chased and definitely smaller than the California Gulls it subjected to harassment. At least twice, we watched it stand on a Ring-billed Gull in the water attempting to get the Ringer to give it some tasty morsel. The bird was almost entirely a medium brown above, however with a blackish cap and darker brown rectrices. The wide, blunt, squared-off central rectrices extended beyond the others a distance of about 2/3 the length of those other.rects. The wingtips of the swimming bird fell just a skooch (which is a very small amount) beyond the central rects. The black of the cap came well below the eyes and past the gape. However, the face and neck were only partially adult-like and it had some barred, juvenile-type feathers below the gape, so the black possibly did not continue around and below the bill, as it would on an adult. There was a small, pale patch at the base of the primaries, above, that was visible at most times when the bird was flying. From underneath, there was fairly extensive white at the bases of the primaries and the dark tipped primary coverts were extensively white-based -- thus forming a very obvious (the most obvious I believe that I have ever seen) white comma proximal to the large, white primary flash. The undenrwing secondary coverts were mostly solid-colored, adult-type feathers, but there were at least a few barred, juvenile-type feathers. The remiges were entirely adult-like. The underparts were mostly pale, but the neck had some thin, dark barring. The sides were extensively barred with blackish and the undertail coverts and vent area was dark. There was a wide, dark pectoral band cutting completely across the chest. The eyes were dark as was the bill, however the distance precluded certainty of the bill color. The legs, also, were dark, but again, I could not be certain whether this was due to them being dark or just looking dark. The bird flew with strong, deep wingbeats when chasing gulls, unlike the more Peregrine-like, snappy wingbeats of Parasitic Jaeger. ln flight, I could see that the wings were very wide-based, with the bases of the wings being more than half the length of the bird from bill tip to tail tip (excluding the R1s). Similar species eliminated: The other two jaegers are easily eliminated by tail shape, wing pattern, head pattern, size, and, flight style. Additionally, Longtailed is ruled out by the distinct chest band.
Technical information
- Model
- E995
- ISO
- 100
- Focal length
- 31 mm
- Flash
- Flash did not fire
- f-stop
- f/5.1
- Shutter speed
- 1/125 sec
- Dimensions
- 1183 pixels x 710 pixels
- Original file size
- 531.08 KB