ML614878706

Age and sex

Juvenile, Unknown sex - 1

Behaviors

Foraging or eating

Media notes

Grey-bellied Brant (left) with a family party of Black Brant (two definitive and a juvenile)

Observation details

Very pleased to find and have excellent views of this unaccompanied juvenile! I initially saw the Grey-bellied along the shore just south of the outflow among the big flock of Black Brants after they returned from towards Cordova Spit. As a lone juvenile, it seemed to get a bit more stick from the other brents with lots of hissing aimed at its direction. The bird worked its way north along the shore loosely with a few other brents before eventually taking a short flight into the bay at which point I walked over to join Jody who had had spotted this strikingly lighter bird once it had moved from the outflow to land in front of him in the bay. Now a bit closer, I could enjoy excellent scope views and clinch the identification of this Arctic enigma. Strikingly lighter body than any of the Black Brants present. I initially wondered whether it may just have been a Black Brant with more retarded plumage, as was the case with the bellies of some of the Black Brants. With good looks though, it was clear that the plumage was in great shape with no excessive wear to the belly feathers and still lots dark fringing to the brown-grey mantle feathers (cf the almost concolourous dark chocolate upperparts of Black Brant). The white flank patch was much the same shape as Black Brant, as expected. It was well-defined with dusky brown crescents towards the rear of the flanks and there was similar dusky colouration on the sides of the breast in front of the flank patch. Quite unlike the smudgy pale patch and breast sides of Pale-bellied (hrota). Concolourous dusky brown extended from the neck sock to between the legs but not beyond. The white fringing of the juvenile wing coverts seemed especially striking compared to juvenile Black Brant. With a lighter breast, flanks and mantle, there was a sharp contrast with the jet black neck sock reminiscent of Pale-bellied Brent. The other nice feature was the weak white neck collar which didn't meet at the back or the front of the neck, just two isolated patches like a Pale-bellied. All definitive and juvenile Black Brants seemed to have the classic broad neck collar often meeting at the front and back.

Additional species

• Brant (Black) Branta bernicla nigricans

Technical information

Model

Canon EOS R7

Lens

EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM

ISO

1600

Focal length

400 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire

f-stop

f/6.3

Shutter speed

1/500 sec

Dimensions

2910 pixels x 1637 pixels

Original file size

3.26 MB