Parasitic Jaegers migrate through Lake Superior in spring and fall. We often see them harassing gulls in mid to late September off of Duluth, Minnesota’s Park Point and Wisconsin’s Wisconsin Point. Long-tailed, Pomarine and Parasitic can all be seen here, but Parasitic Jaeger is the most common by far. They will somehow single out an individual Ring-billed Gull that it feels has a crop full of food. I suppose they can see the full crop. Then they perform the bird equivalent of a aerial “dog fight” and scare the gull into coughing up its last meal. The jaeger can often catch the regurgitant in mid air!

You will see a successful “hunt” in this video. By the way, “jaeger” is “hunter” in German.

These attacks were filmed in mid September off Superior, Wisconsin’s Wisconsin Point with the Panasonic GH5 at 180 fps.