Hi Chris,
Thanks for your comment. At the same time we had loads of Short-tailed and
Wedge-tailed Shearwaters around the boat. There was one Wedge-tailed Shearwater
with conspicuously pale underwings. When I saw the bird in question, I first
thought that it was the Wegde-tailed Shearwater with the pale underwings. This
was caused by the relaxed flight style of this bird, which was very different
from the accompanying Short-tailed Shearwaters.
Interestingly, some of the features you consider typical of Short-tail looked
to me like the opposite! That shows again how difficult it is to judge
descriptions - even of experienced birders. Here is one funny example:
In Birding 43 (2): 54-57, 2011:
Cin-Ty Lee describes a Pluvialis plover: "...small rounded head, almost like a
dove. It has a thin, dainty bill..."
Michael O'Brien describes the same bird from the same photo: "It has a large
blocky head, heavy bill..."
Back to the shearwater:
General look: This flight style can be explained by the combination of a
relatively muscular body and very long pointed wings - both speaking for Sooty
Shearwater.
Underwing pattern: in my opinion the underwing pattern neither rules out a pale
Short-tailed nor a Sooty Shearwater.
Bill: To me it doesn't look small and glued on as in a Short-tailed Shearwater
Head and neck: To me the head doesn't look particularly small and the neck
doesn't look particularly short. The forehead is actually not steep at all. In
a classic Short-tailed Shearwater you would expect a "cute" glued on bill and
an almost vertical forehead. In our bird the relatively prominent nostrils are
not much lower than the more (admittedly not perfectly) sloping forehead.
Small tail and long foot projection: Correct, I agree that the tail is very
short and therefore the foot projection very long.
So, taken everything together, it is a difficult bird. Having seen the flight
style plus the above-mentioned field marks I still tend more toward Sooty.
Looking forward to more comments!
Cheers,
Nikolas
----------------
Nikolas Haass
Sydney, NSW
________________________________
From: Chris Corben <>
To:
Sent: Monday, January 30, 2012 3:04 AM
Subject: Black-winged Petrel, White Tern, False Killer and more: SOSSA pelagic
off Wollongong NSW
Not a simple ID, but why isn't the Sooty Shearwater at this link a Short-tailed?
To me, the shiny underwing with so little contrast is much more of a
Short-tailed feature, especially on the under primary coverts, where a Sooty
shows dark streaks which contrast sharply with the very white background. This
bird, like Short-tailed, shows a more silvery, reflective-looking background,
and the dark streaks are missing, or at least showing very low contrast. They
look more like shadings in the feathers than clearcut areas of dark pigment.
The low contrast between the the shiny primary bases and the coverts is also a
warning sign. These features can be really hard to be sure of in the field,
because they are so light dependent, but these photos, especially the third,
are good enough in my opinion.
The general look of the bird also makes me think of Short-tailed, with the
small bill, small head, steep forehead, small tail, and long foot projection.
None of which would be definitive in itself, and I am sure you could find
pictures of both species showing and not showing these features. But overall,
it looks good for Short-tailed, doesn't it?
Cheers, Chris.
On 01/29/2012 06:25 AM, Nikolas Haass wrote:
> Here are Raja's photos: www.adarman.com/Pelagics/2012-January-28-Wollongong
>
> Cheers,
>
> Nikolas
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