Hi Mick & Birding-aus,
The bird looks certainly interesting!
The only "pale" WTSWs I have seen in Australia were overall cafe-au-lait
coloured. Mick's bird, however, looks "normal" from above and has clear white
areas
underneath (belly and underwing - but not extensive enough for a "perfect" pale
morph WTSW), which makes it look like an "intermediate morph" WTSW. This is
really interesting!
Are there any further photos of pale morph or intermediate morph WTSWs in
Australia? I know that there is a lot of rumour about pale WTSWs turning up
here, but aren't they mainly just aberrant cafe-au-lait coloured WTSWs or are
they really pale morph WTSWs?
Cheers,
Nikolas
----------------
Nikolas Haass
Sydney, NSW
________________________________
From: Mick Roderick <>
To: Birding Aus <>
Sent: Saturday, February 4, 2012 1:53 PM
Subject: Intermediate pale morph Wedge-tailed Shearwater off Swansea, NSW
Hi all,
Steve and I took the tinny out today to about 20km off Swansea (NSW) to see if
we could get amongst some of the interesting birds reported off the NSW coast
in the past week. Seems the southerly air-flow may have spoilt the party
following the cold water upwelling earlier in the week that saw sea
temperatures plummet by 6 degrees overnight after a bout of nor-easters over
warmer water.
It was reasonably quiet today, but with the usual Wedgies, Fleshies and
Short-taileds getting about (and more Hutton's than Fluttering, maybe a dozen
of the former). On the way back in a bird that looked otherwise like a
Wedge-tailed Shearwater but with pale underparts appeared in the throng. We
have identified it as an intermediate morph Wedge-tailed Shearwater (there is a
very low res image attached to a Birdline NSW report, but if anyone would like
to see higher res images let me know and I'll forward them through).
I've been trying to find info on just how commonly this morph is recorded in
Australian waters and cannot find much at all. I recall talking to Lindsay
Smith (SOSSA Wollongong) about this last weekend and I'm sure he said they've
had very few, if any, off W'gong over the years.
Has anyone else recorded pale Wedgies in south-eastern Australian waters?
Mick
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