* Long-tailed Jaeger  Stercorarius longicaudus

Texas Coastal / Offshore Status: Migrant; very rare in the spring and rare in fall with records from August 16 – Dec 1. and accidental in winter. There are 29 documented records, of which 18 are from coastal or offshore areas. 

Habitat: coastal or offshore waters.

Similar Species: Long-tailed Jaeger is the smallest (and rarest) of the three jaeger species. Adults are fairly distinctive, lacking white wing patches on underwing and long central tail feathers. However, juveniles can be similar to larger Parasitic Jaeger. Juvenile Long-tailed Jaeger is usually gray-toned (Parasitic is browner), with strongly barred tail coverts and a pale head. Sometimes visible are contrasting white shafts of the two outermost primary feathers of the upperwing.

* Texas Review Species, requiring written or photographic documentation to TBRC.
(1) TOS Handbook of Texas Birds; by Mark W. Lockwood and Brush Freeman (2005)
(2) Lower Texas Coast Status from Brad McKinney’s annotated checklist (updated 2009).

Seasonal Occurrence Graph

Texas Pelagics Sightings Distribution 

Map 1) The live Google map above shows the geographic distribution of Long-tailed Jaeger found in Offshore Texas from lat-long data I’ve captured from 35 years of Texas Pelagics. 
Click on the box in the upper left of the map to view the map legend.
Click on each sighting symbol and the data label will appear showing the time, date and the number of birds seen.
Click on the symbol on the top right of the map to view a larger map.

The next two map images are copied from eBird.

Map 2) The map below is zoomed into Texas and Louisiana to show individual locations.

Map 3) The bottom map is zoomed out to show the GOM, the northern Caribbean Sea and the adjacent western tropical Atlantic ocean. 

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