Photo 1251311, (c) Pete McGregor, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-ND), uploaded by Pete McGregor

Attribution © Pete McGregor
some rights reserved
Uploaded by petemcgregor petemcgregor
Source iNaturalist NZ
Associated observations

Photos / Sounds

What

Arctic Skua (Stercorarius parasiticus)

Observer

petemcgregor

Date

March 29, 2014

Description

Noticed a bird harassing a tern near a large flock of shearwaters offshore; I was struck by the agility of the pursuing bird (reminded me of the frigate birds in the Galapagos). A second bird joined in; I snapped a couple of photos from the shore and after cropping them heavily came up with these, which look to me like pomarine skuas, with one bird being a dark morph. I'd appreciate confirmation or correction of the i.d. if that's possible from these photos (sorry about the quality, but these were the best I could get under the circumstances).

Anyone else seen these recently around the harbour?

(Updated in light of epitree's suggestion that they might more likely be Arctic skuas.)

Sizes
Copyright

Pete McGregor