ML611247850

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Observation details

Got on this dark morph juvenile jaeger flying West about a half mile out. Initially I thought it was a herring gull as it had a slow, lazy wingbeat even during a somewhat dynamic “sheerwatering flight”. It then gained elevation and soared to our west over land for a while. We tracked it for several minutes until it came nearly over our heads at a few hundred feet. It was then I picked up on some notable structural characteristics: Very broad wings that were as wide as the length of the area behind the wings. It had a very broad chest giving it a “broad shouldered” look. It was bull (round) headed- not triangular like PAJA. It was large billed, but perhaps not as large billed as most POJA. The bill was thick though- more in the LTJA, POJA category than the long skinny bill of PAJA. Its tale was short and broad with short and blunt central recrices. The underwing showed a huge white flash with the white extending nearly to the end of the primaries. There was a second white flash at the base of the primary coverts but this flash was not as big as some POJA. The upper wing showed 6 white primary shafts. Undertail coverts seemed to be neatly barred as well as wing coverts but this is only based on photos and was not viewed in the field. Looks at this bird were sub par but in field but combined with photos seem to eliminate both LTJA and PAJA mostly due to structure with plumage details pointing further towards POJA. Thrilled to see this bruiser on the count as it winds down.

Technical information

Model

Canon EOS R7

Lens

150-600mm F5-6.3 DG OS HSM | Contemporary 015

ISO

160

Focal length

600 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire

f-stop

f/6.3

Shutter speed

1/1000 sec

Dimensions

876 pixels x 584 pixels

Original file size

22.79 KB