On the morning of August 22, 1954, while leading a field trip along the lower part of the Garfield Peak Trail, I first heard and then saw an adult male goldfinch, Spinus tristis (Linnaeus). The bird was in bright yellow plumage and was at a distance of between fifty and one hundred feet as it fed on the ground and made several short flights.

The other, more spectacular, observation was made on the afternoon of September 3, 1954. While on duty at Sinnott Memorial, I observed a bird of unusual appearance circling over the lake shore directly in front of and below that observation point. It continued to soar, with some flapping of its wings, above the shore of the lake between Sinnott Memorial and the foot of the lake trail until it was high overhead. It then glided off in a southward direction.

I believe the bird to have been a jaeger, a pelagic bird seen infrequently along the coast and only rarely inland. It was quite dark above, white below, and had a noticeable black cap. The most striking features of the bird were its elongated central tail feathers and its long, tapering, pointed wings. The shape of the tail feathers indicate that the bird was either a parasitic jaeger, Stercorarius parasiticus (Linnaeus), or a long-tailed jaeger, S. Iongicaudus (Vieillot); its trim appearance and graceful flight would seem to indicate the latter bird.

The jaeger was observed with eight-power binoculars in good light for about five minutes.

Reference

Farner, Donald S. 1952. The Birds of Crater Lake National Park. Lawrence, University of Kansas Press. xi, 187 pp.