birding-aus

Intermediate pale morph Wedge-tailed Shearwater off Swansea, NSW

To: "'Nikolas Haass'" <>, "'Mick Roderick'" <>, "'Birding Aus'" <>
Subject: Intermediate pale morph Wedge-tailed Shearwater off Swansea, NSW
From: "Jeff Davies" <>
Date: Sun, 5 Feb 2012 13:45:02 +1100
G'day Nikolas,

Mick's bird appears to have a typical pale morph body but with a slightly
darker under-wing. However the only image that shows the darker than typical
under-wing also shows an almost completely dark hood which we know isn't
real from other photos of the bird on the water where it looks like a normal
pale morph head, so it is difficult to judge how dark the under-wing really
is. This slightly out of focus ventral view gives the equivalent impression
of an intermediate morph Pink-footed Shearwater for the under-wing.

Raja's bird looks to me like a dark morph with retained extremely worn
belly, a bit like you sometimes see in Providence Petrel. The dorsal
surface, head and flanks look fresh but the fresh feathers are tightly
encircling a trashed belly, there is a sharp cut off between the trashed
belly and the encircling fresh feathers.

I am unaware of any photos from Australian waters of Pale morph birds apart
from Mick's. HANZAB states there is a record of a pale morph bird breeding
at Solitary Island NSW, Bill Lane 1972, and also Serventy 1972 estimates
that 20-30% of birds breeding at Shark Bay are pale morph.
Pale morphs are the norm in mid west pacific, Japan, Hawaii etc.

Cheers Jeff.





-----Original Message-----
From: 
 On Behalf Of Nikolas Haass
Sent: Sunday, 5 February 2012 12:38 PM
To: Nikolas Haass; Mick Roderick; Birding Aus
Subject: Intermediate pale morph Wedge-tailed Shearwater
off Swansea, NSW

Sorry, I have not only seen cafe-au-lait coloured ones but also birds that I
believe are dark morph but with aberrant pale bellies, such as this one in
Raja's collection:


http://www.adarman.com/Pelagics/2011-December-10-Sydney

So this again makes Mick's, Steve's and Lucas's find so interesting!

Cheers,

Nikolas

 
----------------
Nikolas Haass

Sydney, NSW


________________________________
From: Nikolas Haass <>
To: Mick Roderick <>; Birding Aus
<> 
Sent: Sunday, February 5, 2012 12:25 PM
Subject: Intermediate pale morph Wedge-tailed Shearwater
off Swansea, NSW
 
Hi Mick & Birding-aus,

The bird looks certainly interesting! 
The only "pale" WTSWs I have seen in Australia were overall cafe-au-lait
coloured. Mick's bird, however, looks "normal" from above and has clear
white areas 
underneath (belly and underwing - but not extensive enough for a "perfect"
pale 
morph WTSW), which makes it look like an "intermediate morph" WTSW. This is
really interesting!
Are there any further photos of pale morph or intermediate morph WTSWs in
Australia? I know that there is a lot of rumour about pale WTSWs turning up
here, but aren't they mainly just aberrant cafe-au-lait coloured WTSWs or
are they really pale morph WTSWs?

Cheers,


Nikolas

 
----------------
Nikolas Haass

Sydney, NSW


________________________________
From: Mick Roderick <>
To: Birding Aus <> 
Sent: Saturday, February 4, 2012 1:53 PM
Subject: Intermediate pale morph Wedge-tailed Shearwater off
Swansea, NSW

Hi all,
 
Steve and I took the tinny out today to about 20km off Swansea (NSW) to see
if we could get amongst some of the interesting birds reported off the NSW
coast in the past week. Seems the southerly air-flow may have spoilt the
party following the cold water upwelling earlier in the week that saw sea
temperatures plummet by 6 degrees overnight after a bout of nor-easters over
warmer water.
 
It was reasonably quiet today, but with the usual Wedgies, Fleshies and
Short-taileds getting about (and more Hutton's than Fluttering, maybe a
dozen of the former). On the way back in a bird that looked otherwise like a
Wedge-tailed Shearwater but with pale underparts appeared in the throng. We
have identified it as an intermediate morph Wedge-tailed Shearwater (there
is a very low res image attached to a Birdline NSW report, but if anyone
would like to see higher res images let me know and I'll forward them
through).
 
I've been trying to find info on just how commonly this morph is recorded in
Australian waters and cannot find much at all. I recall talking to Lindsay
Smith (SOSSA Wollongong) about this last weekend and I'm sure he said
they've had very few, if any, off W'gong over the years.
 
Has anyone else recorded pale Wedgies in south-eastern Australian waters?
 
Mick
===============================

To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to: 

http://birding-aus.org
===============================
===============================

To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to: 

http://birding-aus.org
===============================
===============================

To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to: 

http://birding-aus.org
===============================

===============================

To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to: 

http://birding-aus.org
===============================

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Admin

The University of NSW School of Computer and Engineering takes no responsibility for the contents of this archive. It is purely a compilation of material sent by many people to the birding-aus mailing list. It has not been checked for accuracy nor its content verified in any way. If you wish to get material removed from the archive or have other queries about the archive e-mail Andrew Taylor at this address: andrewt@cse.unsw.EDU.AU