Re: birding-aus Cooks and Pycroft Petrel

[Tony Palliser <>]

Edwin,
Western Birds Volume 27, Number 2, 1996 
Identification at sea of Cook's, DeFilippi's and Pycroft's Petrel by
Steve N.G. Howell, Sophie Webb and Larry Spear is the only article I have
to hand.  I can photocopy one for you if you wish.  PS We met a
Hadoram Shirihai on a recent trip to NZ and he has superb photos of both
in flight.  

Problem with these birds are that you have to be extremely close to see
the collar marks (often referred to as the ear surrounds) etc. 
Smaller Pterodroma such as these away from the breeding grounds
tend to be very fast and distant in my experience - and to further
complicate there may be considerable variation between individuals. 
These means that positive identification of Cook's Petrel in Australia is
a tough call indeed. 

All the best
Tony


At 1/17/00 +1100, you wrote:
> Does anybody know what work has
> been done to be able to reliably seperate Cooks Petrels from Pycroft's
> Petrel or vice versa?
>  
> Edwin