Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2000 00:35:13 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Phil Davis Subject: Re: Lewes Pelagic ... and NC dark Skua In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed At 02:44 PM 06/05/2000 -0400, Marshall Iliff wrote: (snip) >The SOUTH POLAR SKUA appeared minutes later, full credit >to Jim Stasz as he picked it powering in to harass shearwaters. For the next >25 minutes it bombarded shearwaters and then rested on the water as the >entire boat gawked, discussed skua ID, and took photos (6+ people with >cameras). Some of the on water shots will be full frame in perfect light. >This was a dark morph bird and perhaps a tricky ID problem, but it showed a >monotone back color and lack of any warm rufous tones, which, along with >date, is consistent with South Polar not Great. It was a non-juvenile bird, >by virtue of all dark feet and some molting wing feathers. Pending committee >acceptance this will provide Maryland's 3rd well-documented record of 5 >reports. (snip) Marshall - This weekend we had a similar plumaged bird on the Sunday 6/4 trip out of Hatteras. I understand It was the first SPSK of the season for the NC trips. Like your bird, this one was all dark, very dark--no golden tones at all. I closely stared at it trying to detect a collar, but could discern none. None of the leaders seemed to question the ID as other than SPSK, although a Brit on board did raise the possibility of it being a juvie Great Skua and a California bird even threw out the remote possibility of Brown Skua. You might want to compare notes with Brian or George. Other highlights of this weekend's three NC trips: 6/2 Manteo Bermuda Petrel (good looks); 6/3 Hatteras Arctic Terns; Sooty Terns; False Killer Whales 6/4 Hatteras Herald Petrel (intermediate morph, distant looks), the aforementioned South Polar Skua; False Killer Whales All trips - the usual suspects, including lots of Band-rumped Storm-Petrels, several Leach's Storm-Petrels; lots of Black-capped Petrels, Audubon's Shearwaters Other highlights: 6/4 Powell's Junction, NC Dixie BBQ (excellent!) More other highlights: 6/5 I "closed out" Eastern Phoebe in Somerset County on the way back !!! (finally !!!) Phil ================================== Phil Davis Davidsonville, Maryland USA mailto:PDavis@ix.netcom.com ================================== ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================