• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

SKUA's (1 Viewer)

This may take some time!!!!

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

Darrell
 
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.

Over to the next expert....
 
Skua id

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 ;-)
 
Warning! This thread is more than 21 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top