Alerted by Ken Feustel to his productive seawatch at Robert Moses SP, Suffolk, LI this morning, Pat and I headed down to the beach. We found Ken still there, along with John Gluth and Keith and Mickey Cashman, and lots of seabird activity.
Laughing Gulls and Forster's and Common Terns were feeding actively not far offshore and were being harassed nearly constantly by Parasitic Jaegers (mostly juveniles but also several adult-like birds). Northern Gannets were moving in good numbers, occasionally pausing to feed also, and we recorded all three scoters, an entrained Green-winged Teal, both loons, two Bonaparte's Gulls, and other expected species. Later, Pete Morris picked out a distant Cory's Shearwater. Sometime after 10:00, I was watching a juv Parasitic chasing Laughing Gulls when Ken called out a new jaeger approaching from the left (west). I looked over and found it coming along quite close, just beyond the breakers. It struck me as very slim, long-tailed, and slender-winged, and I immediately called everyone's attention to it as a potential Long-tailed Jaeger. Its overall jizz appeared more delicate than the purposeful, falcon-like gait of the Parasitics, and its slender wings were markedly narrower than the tapering body and tail behind, quite unlike the more balanced proportions of the nearby Parasitics, whose wings looked roughly equal in width to their shorter, more squared-off tails. The appearance of the bird from the wings back was very distinctive, if difficult to describe: the rear part of the body was already very slim where the wings ended and tapered further as it merged with the long tail, which also seemed to taper to a sort of dull point (for lack of a better expression to describe the distinction re Parasitic). I couldn't make out the tips of the central rectrices per se (whereas we could see the spikes projecting from the squared-off tails of juv Parastics at the same distance), but I think the overall tail shape just described was a consequence of the greater length (and non-spikiness) of these feathers. Its plumage was unfamiliar: the underparts were mostly clear white, contrasting with a much darker lower belly and undertail, and also with a gray hood (seemingly uniform from nape to throat). I wasn't able to gauge the underwings very well except that they looked dark, but the upperparts looked uniformly gray-brown, with exactly two, vivid white primary shafts. Because of the way we were sheltering behind the corner of the concession building (I was standing behind the others), my view became blocked as the bird continued eastward, into the feeding flock. Others were able to compare it directly to Laughing Gulls and one Parasitic Jaeger and to verify its absolutely smaller size: much smaller than the Parasitic Jaeger and seemingly slightly smaller than the Laughing Gulls, also. (Parasitic Jaegers are clearly larger than Laughing Gulls in direct comparison.) Given the date, we had been hoping perhaps for a Pomarine Jaeger; Long-tailed Jaeger was completely unexpected! Shai Mitra Bay Shore ________________________________ CSI Tops MONEY magazine’s Best Colleges list for 2015-2016><http://csitoday.com/2015/07/csi-tops-money-magazines-best-colleges-list-for-2015-2016/> -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
