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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Stercorarius pomarinus ? norway (1 Viewer)

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:
 
but LTS dark morph is about the rarest bird in the world isn't it? And I thought 2 outer primaries only white shaft is on the upperwing?
This said I know about skuas as much as i know about gulls, happy to be corrected
 
I photographed very similar looking bird (maybe even the same bird) at 2nd July in Å i Lofoten, Norway.
I wonder long time what this might be and finally I decided it is parasiticus, but I'm not 100% sure. What do you think?
 

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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 -
 
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 -

thanks for that
 
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.

which takes us back to published scientific evidence, thanks even more
 
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.

Interesting, had no idea that young, dark birds don't stay dark and that adult dark are so rare.
 
Tongue in cheek: does this mean that dark morph immatures really should be described as dark phase?

Niels
 
All very interesting - my mate unfortunately does not take photographs except for mobile phone views and nest records - his visits were for the purpose of breeding census - perhaps he was looking at either immature birds or distant Arctics?

Either way i will update him on the info given here:t:

At the risk of playing Devils Advocate the species is classified as ‘of least concern’ with the 2 subspecies having a combined population of a minumum of 250k - 750k over a potential breeding area of nearly 35 million hectares. Common sense would tell me that there must be dark birds unseen or recorded away from the more easily visited hotspots in Norway or Arctic Canada...

Laurie -
 
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