Immature Long-tailed Skua off the Po Delta on July 30, 2006

An immature Long-tailed Skua (Stercorarius longicaudus) was observed and photographed by Bruno Moretti off shore of Rosolina, Po river Delta, NE Italy, on July 30, 2006. Small bill with weak gonydeal angle, small head, slim body with shallow breast and narrow wings was pointing to this species. As it was similar to juvenile, but with new upperwing-coverts uniform greysh-brown, lacking pale scaling of juveniles, and underparts cleaner whitish, making breast band and dark hood more striking, hence the bird was a 2cy in 'firts winter plumage'. The picture shows the bird has underwing as on juvenile; note pale bases to retained juvenile primaries. Conspicuous greyish breast band, pale lower breast and barred flanks together with conspicuous pale barring on uppertail-coverts are typical of an intermediate phase. The last observation of this species in the Delta was dating back to  August 11, 2006, when a pale phase 2cy was recorded at Gorino.

11:36 - Tuesday, August 1, 2006 - post comment

Long-tailed Skua

Nice picture. This bird has striking resemblance with a Long-tailed Skua seen near Paris-France in early july !!

Thierry - 13:48 - Thursday, August 3, 2006

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