Posted by Phil Pickering (208.46.229.171) on October 17, 2001 at 21:53:29:
In Reply to: jaeger id posted by Matthew Kenne on October 16, 2001 at 20:19:48:
I don't have Olsen and Larsson to check, but perhaps there is confusion over ambiguous age terminology at play here. With gulls at least, 2nd-summer is typically used to refer to a bird in its second FULL summer - in other words a 3rd-calendar-year or 2-year-old bird, that would have 2nd-generation (presumably at least somewhat more adult-like) flight and tail feathers in June. If Tony is correct, this is actually a 1st-summer (2nd-calendar-year or 1-year-old) bird that would still have retained juvenile (1st-generation) tail and flight feathers that would be showing a full YEAR+ worth of wear in June (similar to those ugly 1st-summer gulls). If jaegers molt like large gulls, their 1st-pre-basic molt (which is actually a 1st-pre-alternate molt) would only include the body plumage, scaps, and maybe some of the wing coverts - but not the flight feathers and tail (I am not sure about the undertail coverts, but they seem to be 2nd-generation+ on this bird).
I'm not saying I agree, or am even informed enough about molt in jaegers to have an opinion - just hoping to focus the age terminology to more specifics so I can better learn from this (I'm too utterly confused to hazard a guess at this point).
Cheers,
Phil