ML646792055

Observation details

At approximately 1:35 PM first spotted a dark bird sitting on the water north from the point in the mist and heat shimmer. Initially somewhat gull-like, but with a smaller head and more erect neck and backside held a bit higher out of the water. It appeared to be drifting away slowly, so I ran the rest of the way out to the point to get better looks. From the point I could see the Jaeger shape better and was now more certain. It appeared almost all dark, but when it bobbed in the water could just barely make out a bit of light color toward the belly. It stretched its wings while it slowly drifted out further, and appeared to have a fair amount of white shafts to the primaries ruling out Long-tailed and creating a lighter patch on the upperwing. Avery arrived when it was drifting a bit further into the shimmer, and we got a second look at the white shafts on the upperwing before it took off with powerful flight. It was too distant to resolve the number of shafts. In flight could fully see the light belly and significant white at the base of the undersides of the primaries. We could not resolve a second white flash on the underwing, but distance could have prevented it. At this point I decided to hedge my bets and recorded the bird on video as I felt it would be more valuable than field notes as I am unfamiliar with the finer points of Jaeger ID. It gradually circled and moved south until we lost it at 2:20 PM. Digiscopes