Fellow birders,
A private pelagic charter of the Halicat off Sydney, NSW yesterday (Monday
9th October) produced a most unusual storm petrel. Namely one of the dark
"Oceanodroma" storm petrels. Early research suggests that this bird is
very likely a Tristram's Storm Petrel Oceanodroma tristrami normally
residing in the Western and Central Pacific. Fortunately, the bird was
very obliging and allowed many photographs and video footage to be taken at
close range. So I am hopeful that we will have enough information to
clench the identity of this magnificent bird and have it accepted by the
Birds Australia Rarities Committee BARC.
Photographs and notes taken reveal the size to be about 50-75% larger than
accompanying Wilson's Storm Petrel making this a particularly exciting
bird. Other key features noted for those interested in an early description
include: a very conspicuous broad buff upperwing bar stretching from the
carpel to the trailing edge of the secondaries, pale buff rump, deeply
forked long tail, dark sooty-brown head, greyish back, very long brown
wings without obvious pale bases to the primary shafts (although the shafts
were seen to be pale at extreme close range) black legs and feet and very
pale edges to what I am assuming are the tertials. At this stage I feel
confident that it is tristrami but more research and an accepted vote from
BARC will be required before this can be added to the Australian list.
It is hoped to have a full report ready towards the end of the month which
will be posted on to the pelagic web page
http://users.bigpond.net.au/palliser along with some photographs.
What a bird!
Tony
Birding-Aus is on the Web at
www.shc.melb.catholic.edu.au/home/birding/index.html
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