Voting Comments

Voting Comments

Record #: 34-B-05

Long-tailed Jaeger

1st Round: 2-5
2nd Round: 0-7
NOT ACCEPT

1^st Round	2nd Round
09-14-2007. Sturts -- Reject, specific identification not established These could likely be Long-tailed Jaeger as Earl is an excellent birder and familiar with all three Jaeger species. However, Earl gives us little to go on in way of description. He does not eliminate the other two Jaeger species. Seeing 13 this far inland seems unlikely but what else would have long Jaeger like tails? All other sightings we have are for single birds.	06-08-2008. Sturts -- Reject, specific identification not established I'm staying with my 1st round vote for the same reasons.
09-16-2007. Dave Trochlell -- Reject, specific identification not established I'm guessing that the reporter actually witnessed an extremely rare sighting of a flock of migrating Long-tailed Jaegers, but we don't have sufficient details in his description of the birds for me to accept this record.	11-21-2008. Dave Trochlell -- Reject, specific identification not established The physical description of the birds offered here was too inadequate for such an unusual sighting.
9/16/07. Cliff Weisse -- Reject, specific identification not established The report lacks a description of the bird(s). Cliff	11-16-2008 Cliff Weisse -- Reject, Spec identification not established I'm still incomfortable with this brevity of the description, including only one field mark (long tails) seen on only 5 individuals. That's just not enough to confirm the identification as Parasitic also has long central tail streamers. Even if 5 were adult Long-taileds how were the birds lacking tail streamers identified on a fly-by? Even if I felt confident that the 5 were LTJAs there isn't any description of the other 8 birds so this record should not be accepted as written.
4 October 2007. Hardy -- Accept The description of "long tails" is not adequate documentation, but I have no doubt that the reporter is familiar with jaegers and could correctly identify these birds.	30 November 2008. Hardy -- Reject, specific identification not established I'll change my vote to reject on this record - although I believe Chapin is capable of distinguishing subjective features such as build and flight style, he has offered none of that in this report, and I agree with other committee members that the reported description is not sufficient for formal acceptance.
010-06-2007. chuck trost -- Reject, specific identification not established While they all might have been LTJAs there was almost no description (other than long tails on some). Need more details.	11-20-2008. chuck trost -- Reject, specific identification not established Earl has got to describe birds better than this. They were probably LTJA, but other than the tail streamers, there is almost no other way to separate the other jaegers.
11-04-2007. Carlisle -- Accept Minimal details and likely an unprecedented # of jaegers seen at one time in Idaho. However, I have seen multiple jaegers migrating together (granted it was in Alaska) so I now that's possible. Also, what else could they be if observers saw the tail length on many birds (were others adults that had molted tail streamers or immatures?)? Would have been nice to see more plumage details...	11-25-08. Carlisle -- Reject, specific identification not established Though I think it's likely that Earl was correct in his ID, I agree with other committee members that ID details are too scant to support such an unprecedented observation.
13 Nov 2007. Darren Clark -- Reject, specific identification not established Although adult Long-tailed Jaegers are pretty distinctive (I assume I've never seen one) the report gives no plumage or behavioral details other than they had long tails.	11-18-2008. Darren Clark -- Reject, specific identification not established Still not adequate details in the report. All adult Jaegers have long tails.