All,
Back in Oct a Jack Shick took a photo of a cookilara taken off Lord Howe on the
way to Ball’s Pyramid. At the time he thought it might have been a Gould’s. I
was sent a copy by a friend who thought it may be something else...I believe it
to be a Pycroft’s.
While living in NZ I spent a fair bit of time trying to suss out the
differences
between Cook’s and Pycroft’s and this bird is a very strong candidate for the
latter. I have seen about a hundred Pycroft’s and many hundred Cooks and it
has
all the indicative features that I am familiar with for Pycroft. There are
many
that say these two species can’t be separated at sea but I believe that there
is
a bit of sliding scale with individuals on the far end being distinctive and
not
too difficult to separate.
Because this would be a significant record for AU let me toss it into the
public
forum for debate. I am in no way an expert but a few mates and I came up with
some rules of thumb that were good ways to separate the two. Of these, the
features which stand out to me are:
1. Strong dark grey hood and distinct eye-line
2. Deep, thick and distinct mark under the eye which is greater behind
than in front of the eye
3. Unbroken underwing carpal bar
4. And most distinctive which I have never seen published anywhere is a
slight extension of the central tail feathers on Pycroft’s vs Cooks.
I have asked Tom Tarrant to post this for me at the Australasian Bird Image
Data
Base. Please find the image at the following link:
http://www.aviceda.org/abid/newimages.php?action=latestimages&p=1&pagesize=1
Cheers,Roger
Roger McNeill
Samford Valley, SEQ
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