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
Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your homepage.
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@att.net
----- Original Message -----
From: "Daniel williams" dwilliamsbirder302@yahoo.com
To: ctbirds@lists.ctbirding.org
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
Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your homepage.
This list is provided by the Connecticut Ornithological Association (COA)
for the discussion of birds and birding in Connecticut.
For subscription information visit
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@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@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
Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your homepage.
This list is provided by the Connecticut Ornithological Association (COA)
for the discussion of birds and birding in Connecticut.
For subscription information visit
http://lists.ctbirding.org/mailman/listinfo/ctbirds_lists.ctbirding.org
This list is provided by the Connecticut Ornithological Association (COA) for the discussion of birds and birding in Connecticut.
For subscription information visit http://lists.ctbirding.org/mailman/listinfo/ctbirds_lists.ctbirding.org
Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search.
Danny and Clay -
About a month ago three different observers (I was one of these) at three different times saw a large dark falcon-like bird working Great Island and the surrounding areas on the lower CT River. One observer saw this bird interacting with the two Peregrines at the Route 95 bridge in Old Saybrook.
Cheers,
Andy
Andrew Griswold, Director
Connecticut Audubon Society EcoTravel
-----Original Message-----
From: ctbirds-bounces@lists.ctbirding.org [mailto:ctbirds-bounces@lists.ctbirding.org] On Behalf Of Clay Taylor
Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2007 1:27 PM
To: Daniel williams; ctbirds@lists.ctbirding.org
Subject: Re: [CT Birds] Hammo 10/13 Red Crossbill, Common Eider, Probable Jaeger sp.
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@att.net
----- Original Message -----
From: "Daniel williams" dwilliamsbirder302@yahoo.com
To: ctbirds@lists.ctbirding.org
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
Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your homepage.
This list is provided by the Connecticut Ornithological Association (COA)
for the discussion of birds and birding in Connecticut.
For subscription information visit
http://lists.ctbirding.org/mailman/listinfo/ctbirds_lists.ctbirding.org
This list is provided by the Connecticut Ornithological Association (COA) for the discussion of birds and birding in Connecticut.
For subscription information visit http://lists.ctbirding.org/mailman/listinfo/ctbirds_lists.ctbirding.org