Hi all,
Not that I'd call myself an expert, but here's my rather late 10
cents worth. Having looked at the photos on the website - the bird
has to be an Australasian gannet. I am doing my PhD on Aust gannets
at Cape Kidnappers in NZ, and this bird is pretty much identical in
all of the features to the birds I see everyday, even to the point of
having (seen from the underside shot) what looks like white feathers
for the last two secondaries (closest to the body) - which
distinguish Cape and Aust gannets (among other things). If I saw
this bird flying around my study site, I wouldn't take a second look.
If it was a young North Atlantic gannet, then if the secondaries were
all dark, as they appear to be in the photos, then you would expect
at least a smattering of black feathers throughout the coverts.
However, there appear to be only white feathers. As for the tail, it
appears that the bird is currently in moult/molt as there appears to
be 4 white outer retrices on either side with a gap and then 2
central black feathers. This suggests even more so that the bird is
an adult Australasian, as if it is moulting tail feathers, one would
expect it also to have some white secondaries showing through. There
does also appear to be a gap or two in the primaries (the underside
shot), but this may just be due to the birds flight?
Take a look (if you haven't already) at page 26 in The Gannet, by
Bryan Nelson, and page 12 in The Sulidae Gannets and Boobies, also by
Bryan Nelson. The drawings and photos in these books seem to point
to the same conclusion.
So, I would be pretty happy to call this bird an Australasian gannet.
I will pass these photos on to a few ornithologists in NZ to see
whether they agree or disagree with me on this one.
Hope this helps.
Cheers
Brent
Are there any Gannet Experts on line? i.e. Would anyone care to
help Ned identify this interesting Gannet?
>
>I thought I would write and ask you a question concerning at gannet observed
>a year ago off the coast of North Carolina (two photographs posted at
>http://www.sterling-inn.com/gannetpage.html; the page takes about 15 seconds
>to load). The bird resembled, in wing pattern (dark secondaries, primaries,
>and alula, with white tertials) and possibly tail pattern (two central
>rectrices black) an Australasian/Tasman Gannet, but of course there are only
>about 30 records of this species from the South Atlantic and none from the
>North, so our sense is that this must be a Northern Gannet yet to lose its
>dark secondaries. I suppose then the question becomes: would this
bird stand
>out to you amongst your local gannets as something unusual? It is
an odd way
>to pose the question, but weâ*?ve tried to look at this from as
many angles as
>possible, with one possibility being that we canâ*?t or
shouldnâ*?t with 100%
>certainty identify this bird to species.
>
>Thanks in advance for any thoughts you might spare on this bird,
>
>Ned Brinkley
>
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Brent Stephenson MSc (Hons)
PhD Candidate (Zoology)
Ecology Group, Institute of Natural Resources, Massey University,
Private Bag 11-222, Palmerston North, New Zealand
Courier: Ecology Building, Cnr University Avenue and Orchard Road,
Turitea Campus
Cellphone 025 GANNET (426638)
Phone (Massey) +64-6-3505799 ext. 2609
Fax +64-6-3505623
Email
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"That an opinion has been widely held is no evidence that it is not
utterly absurd."
- Bertrand Russell
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