Posted by Marie Gonsalo on December 11, 2002 at 09:23:39:
Hi Robin,
Lost your email address-AOL ate it up before I had a chance to say thank you for writing me about your trip to see the Mongolian in R.I.
Been enjoying your posts to Tropical Audubon for a while now. Regarding your recent sighting of Jaegers: a few years ago, the third week in August, on First Encounter Beach on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, I had the heart-stopping experience of hearing and seeing five loudly barking Jaegers as they flew in over the water over the Beach to escape foul weather (potential hurricane) that had been lingering near the coast of the Cape for days.
I had been sitting in my car with the window rolled down at the Beach parking lot drinking coffee, eating a muffin, and reading a newspaper "birded out" after a week of attending a fabulous shorebird workshop with Wayne Peterson of MA Audubon. Wayne had told us about two beaches to go to on the Cape for storm-driven birds, but had suggested going early am. Well, I didn't make it to First Encounter until 11am and figured I probably missed all the action.
Suddenly, while sitting alone in the car, I heard a noise like barking dogs but continued to sit in the car for another 2/3 minutes believing I had missed whatever interesting phenomena had occurred. Then, impossibly, the sound got louder!! I jumped out of my car with binoculars in hand. Believe it or not, the birds were still not visible. It took another minute before the jaegers appeared over the water, headed for the beach, and then flew diagonally overhead. These sturdy, strongly flapping lifer pomarines disappeared still wildly "barking".
I still get "goosebumps" when I think about it.
Happy holidays!
Marie Gonsalo
Ft. Myers
Swflbirder@aol.com