To add to the earlier report of what was seen on the August 23rd San Diego pelagic trip, photos of the white-rumped storm-petrel that did one straight fly-by from right to left only 11.7 miles offshore on the Nine-Mile Bank has been endorsed by multiple outside experts as a Wilson's Storm-Petrel. At the time we thought the bird showed many characters of a Wilson's but it did NOT show feet sticking out beyond the tail tip when it was photo'd over just a several-second interval. As it turns out, sometimes Wilson's will tuck the feet in so that they are not visible, although if indeed the feet are showing then that is a good character. The bird DID show the correct wing shape, flight style, pale ulnar (upperwing) bar, white rump band shape, and tail shape for a Wilson's.
Not long thereafter, at a feeding frenzy being attended by all three species of jaegers, there was a smallish dark-morph jaeger that was quite interesting. Some characters pointed to it being a potential immature (one-year-old ?) dark-morph Long-tailed, which are rare and a bit controversial as to their existence. These same outside authorities split on it being indeed a Long-tailed or best left as a Long-tailed/Parasitic. BUT in any case, any attendees on the boat taking jaeger photos at that time of the mid-afternoon (probably around 3:30-4:00+PM) feeding frenzy on the lower Nine-Mile Bank should look for any images of this dark-morph bird and make sure to attach them to their eBird list when the lists are shared sometime within the next 24 hours.
--Paul Lehman, San Diego
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