I've just read an extremely significant article in Birding World Vol. 16 No
4 entitled 'New Zealand Storm-petrel not extinct'. It was stuck at the back
of the journal and certainly did not receive the prominence I feel it
deserves.
It details the sightings of Bob Flood and Bryan Thomas on 17th November
2003. They chartered a boat from Sandspit, Nr Warkworth, North Island, New
Zealand. 2km north of Little Barrier Island they observed and photographed
between 10 and 20 storm-petrels which they presumed at the time to be
black-bellied, although they had reservations. On reviewing the photographs
it became clear that they had been watching the presumed extinct New Zealand
Storm-petrel. The photographs are incredibly clear and look just like the
specimens from the Museum d'Histoire, Paris shown in the recent article 'A
possible sighting of an extinct bird - the New Zealand Storm-petrel' by Sav
Saville, Brent Stephenson and Ian Southey (Birding World V16 No4). That
article details their possible sighting in Jan of this year. The new
photographs leave no doubt (in my mind, at least) that it was New Zealand
Storm-petrel which was observed by Flood and Thomas.
I see that the Flood and Thomas sighting has been discussed on the NZ
Birding List, but I feel this article is extremely important and I felt
other S-hemisphere birders might like to know about it.
Happy birding
Ken Tucker
Portland, Dorset, UK.
Birding-Aus is on the Web at
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