Parasitic Jaeger, Hooper Lane – Henderson County, NC, May 23, 2026

I was sitting at home catching up on paperwork on May 23, 2026 when a most surprising message came across the Blue Ridge Birders text group –

“Amy found Parasitic Jaeger on Hooper Lane!”

The text came with a great photo of a Jaeger sitting on a muddy field.  Amy in this case was Amy Jackson, who first spotted the Jaeger earlier in the day, and sent along the photo.  And Hooper Lane is a large sod farm 20 minutes from home which often attracts unusual shorebirds (I’ve seen 31 species there) and other rarities.  But none as rare as this Parasitic Jaeger – the first record for the NC mountains.  Within 5 minutes I was out of the house and on my way.

When I arrived there were not surprisingly already at least a dozen birders onsite.  And with just a quick scan I spotted the Jaeger sitting on the muddy field where sod had just been harvested.  

For the next few minutes, it walked around a bit and stretched its wings, showing the white flashes at the base of the primaries, and the pointed (not twisted) tail feathers.  But over the next couple hours the bird became less active, and even moribund.  Unfortunately, birders arriving the next morning searching for the bird only found a pile of feathers where the Jaeger had been the previous day.  It apparently did not make it through the night.

I can’t help but ask – how did a Jaeger make its way to our local sod farm?  We had had some rain the day before which caused a bit of flooding of the fields.  And those conditions attracted a good number of peeps and other shorebirds that day.  But we didn’t have any big weather fronts or tropical systems that might have caused a migrating Jaeger to be re-routed from its typical coastal migration route.  Perhaps it was one of the very few Jaegers that will migrate inland, rarely appearing on large inland reservoirs.  And it just happened to be passing by when our local rain system grounded it.

Parasitic Jaeger was #330 on my NC list.  My statebird map for this species is inserted below.  The light blue shaded states are those where I’ve seen this species in its regular range.  The cross-hatched states are those where I’ve yet to see it in that range.  Although Parasitic Jaegers are regular on the NC coast, they are virtually unreported inland.  As a result, I’ve shaded in NC on the map in dark blue which represents a state where I’ve seen the species as a rarity.