The proportions of the bird look very slim to me and the White primary flashes are restricted to the outer 2 primaries - why not intermediate Long-tailed?
Laurie:t:
....and the bill does look on the short side?
Cheers
I have seen 2 different dark LTS from the Scillonian - i don’t know as to how rare the morph is.
The original image lacks ‘chunky’ proportions to my eyes altho the ‘pot belly’ is not visible...
Laurie -
Cheers Tom:t:
I remember that article and the beautiful pictures that are shown with it.
I spoke to a friend last night who has made several visits to Varanger photographing amongst other things Long-tailed Skuas during the breeding season. He says that on his trips he has encountered upper single figures on the breeding grounds including 2 instances of both adults being dark. This morph must be uncommon or perhaps mistaken for Arctic during Autumn passage. I wouldn’t know just conjecture...
Laurie -
either OB and those in the images #8 are dark arctic skua. no way long-tailed.
Original bird is Arctic Skua. As are those in post 8.
Dark morph *ADULT* LTS are very rare (3-4 documented records ever, worldwide), and unlikely to be over-looked on passage. If someone was photographing them in Varanger (where all the LTS I've seen were pale-morph adults), then it would be nice to see some photos. Dark morph *immatures* are much more common.
Original bird is Arctic Skua. As are those in post 8.
Dark morph *ADULT* LTS are very rare (3-4 documented records ever, worldwide), and unlikely to be over-looked on passage. If someone was photographing them in Varanger (where all the LTS I've seen were pale-morph adults), then it would be nice to see some photos. Dark morph *immatures* are much more common.
Tongue in cheek: does this mean that dark morph immatures really should be described as dark phase?
Niels