[CT Birds] Hammo 10/13 Red Crossbill, Common Eider, Probable Jaeger sp.

[Daniel williams]

CIay, I considered Gyr carefully actually and believe me I tried haha but as far as I could tell, the head was far to small and delicate for a falcon. Noticable white primary shafts were not a field mark I noted immediatly and that concerned me as well but the lighting and distance were such that it could have escaped me. Also, the wings looked ridiculously long in proportion to the body and the wingbeats were very uniform and regular and even a bit slower than I would expect from a falcon, even a gyrfalcon. In my mind i counted the bahavior strongly in favor of jaeger, because I would not expect a falcon of any species to fly any distance less than a foot over open water, but I really have no idea if thats accurate or not. Again, I have minimal expirience with Jaegars and none with Gyrfalcon but I feel relatively confident I observed a large Jaeger species, perhaps even the same bird seen by Mr. Provencher.
  Thoughts?
  Danny

Clay Taylor <ctaylor at att.net> wrote:
  Danny -

This is prime time for Gyrfalcon sightings - did your bird have a raptor
head, or a gull-ish head? Any jaeger / skua would likely show a
noticeable white patch at the base of the primaries, whereas Gyr wouldn't.

Clay Taylor
Moodus, CT
ctaylor at att.net

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Daniel williams" 
To: 
Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2007 12:36 PM
Subject: [CT Birds] Hammo 10/13 Red Crossbill, Common Eider,Probable Jaeger
sp.


> Hello all,
> A good day of birding at Hammo through the snow squalls. The flock of
20-25 Red Crossbills continue in the pines near the West Beach parking lot.
After checking on the Crossbills I scanned the sound from the West Beach, I
picked up a large dark bird coming off the sound from the south east. In the
first instant it was spotted my mind jumped to Peregrine but context,
behavior, shape and color rule out peregrine. It was very large and very
dark, flying very levelly and powerfully inches off the water, it glided
only for a split second over the waves. It appeared heavy chested, small
headed and bulky, and as it got closer it appeared all dark, it flew over
miegs point four hundred yards down the beach and disappeared flying west. I
have limited expirience with Jaegers and do not personally feel like I can
responsibly call it one species or another however it is certainly a very
interesting encounter. I realize fully the rarity of Jaegers in Long Island
Sound particularly in
> the winter.
> Also, at the end of the Morraine Trail, were 115 dunlin, 1
common Eider, 23 Purple sandpipers.
> Cheers,
> Danny Williams
>
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
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