isaac_chan

Southern Waters of Hong Kong 香港南面海域
2009/4/18
D2x + AF-S VR 300mm + 1.7x (Handheld on boat)

Just record images as the weather was quite bad on that day....   all images are 100% cropped.

#1 and #2 are the same bird. Is it Pomarine Jaeger 中賊鷗 ?

#1

#2


#3 and #4 are another bird, following the first one. Is it also Pomarine Jaeger 中賊鷗 ?
#3

#4


Third bird, how about this?
#5


Thank you.

Tony

#5 looks like a long tailed jaeger to me.
note the white colour only present on the outer two shafts.

tmichael

I agree with Tony that #5 looks like Long-tailed for the reason he gives (concerning the underwing) and in view of the extensively "smoky" rear underparts. I think it does however look on the heavy side (though I'm not sure there's that much variation in Long-tailed) and on the boat on Saturday it wasn't identified as Long-tailed - presumably it was one of the two or three Arctics we thought we had.

I think #1 is Pom - it's very deep-chested (in one shot anyway!), has a clearly two-tone bill and has the "double" white flash below formed by having paleness on both the primaries and the primary coverts (only 1 in 20 Arctics have this according to the Collins Bird Guide to Britain and Europe). Also it surely has either growing or broken spoons - I can't see how Arctic could look like that from any angle. It was the first skua we saw on Saturday and was confidently identified as Pom at the time.

The second one was (shots #3 and #4)and remains more problematic, but I felt at the time it was heavy enough for Pom, looking very similar indeed to the bird it was accompanying (#1). In the photos it looks deep-chested and broad-winged and appears to have a heavyish, two-toned bill. Not totally conclusive, but certainly an acceptable "balance of probability" id for me.

Mike Turnbull

isaac_chan

Thanks Tony and Mike.