None of this is at all helpful, Simon!! The jizz was spot on for any Sooty
I've ever seen. I've read that Sh-t can appear stockier, and a little
Fulmar-like, which they definitely weren't, whereas those we saw a couple of
days previously at Coff's Harbour did appear stockier. The underwing flash
on most birds was decidedly white more than grey, and certainly whiter than
the Coff's birds. Both features could of course be attributed to different
conditions, but not consistently on such a large number of birds. The light
was excellent off Bass Point, which could have accentuated the underwing
colour, but other features I've read about for Sh-t include a paler throat
and browner, more contrasting breast, neither of which were apparent and
would surely have also been accentuated by the strong light. They weren't at
any great distance either, with the vast majority of those we thought we'd
IDed being 500m to 1km out. Nearly all of these inshore birds were heading
south in a manner suggesting passage, whereas there were good numbers of
birds further out (where most of the Flutton's were) which were flying in
all directions, more suggestive of local birds. It wasn't possible to make
out the underwing colour on these farther birds, but that is as likely to be
due to the greater distance than any perceived darker colour. The
albatrosses and jaegers seen were all also flying south. The weather wasn't
actually that severe on that morning, with perhaps a force six from the SE,
and from which we were sheltered, with squally showers, and nothing really
that would suggest conditions to make a Wandering Albatross fly along the
shore line, for example. However the previous day a rather marked front had
pushed through from (I think) the SE, which may have pushed the more pelagic
stuff closer in. I believe the albatrosses shouldn't have been so close in
so late in the year, and the pale Wedge-t was certainly unusual, so clearly
something strange had happened.
Don't know whether anything I've said here is of relevance either way, but
thought I might as well present the whole picture and let more experienced
birders decide. I look forward to some expert opinion and I'm only going to
improve my pool of knowledge with some well-balanced counter-arguments and
corrections.
All the best
Steve
Stephen, It takes years of practice to correctly id seabirds, especially
from the shore (and I am a looonnnggg way from being an expert) especially
when you are generally on a headland with a rough wind blowing which is
giving you severe image shake! At least in Australia the weather is
generally warmer - I used to go seawatching regularly at Cley Coastguards
in Norfolk when a harsh northerly was blowing trying to track down Little
Auks, Puffins and Great Skuas!
Because of these generally poor viewing conditions jizz is so important
(or is it jezz or jozz for those that have read Seans book). Sooty
Shearwaters are very similar to Short-Tailed from a distance - a couple of
features I tend to look for and can be reliable particularly if you can
make direct comparison is that Sooty's have an "elongated" appearance
relative to Short-Tailed due to their much longer bill (I think its about
1.5x longer), in addition in good light the underpanel of Sooty creates a
"white flash" appearance as they glide from side to side, this is in
contrast to Short-Tailed which just gives the appearance of a pale
underwing (I think this looks more "greyish" than white or perhaps a dirty
white rather than a more distinctive "flash") panel which is less obvious.
Hope this helps
Simon.
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