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Skuas are one of the hardest groups to identify - even experts disagree. Of course there are some which are easy to tell, but juveniles in particular cause confusion because there is so much overlap in size and plumage that certain ID is often all but impossible. Poms can look like Great. Long-tailed can look like Arctic, and Arctic can look like any - (well maybe not Great!)
Anyone who can come up with a fool-proof way of telling them apart is either a genius - or is spinning a line
Just figured out you're talking about jaegers-- thought you wanted to know how to separate Great from South Polar Skua.
You can start with jizz: Long-tailed is dainty and tern-like; poms are heavy, big-chested brutes; and parasitic are in-between.
I've just received my copy of a new book on identifying seabirds in flight http://www.algonet.se/~nho/flighten/index.html. It has several pages on skuas but also wildfowl, gulls, terns and most species you will see on a seawatch. This book together with Collins Birdguide is to my knowledge the best id-literature for a seawatch.
I've got serious plans spending a lot of time the next three weeks seawatching south of Lofoten islands here in Norway. And then this new book will really be put to the test ;-)