Hi Sav,
Thanks for your comment. I agree that there is likely huge variation plus the
lack of published evidence (see my comment below). This may be individual
variation - as you said. However, I don't think that it is an age-related
pattern. We get both pattern types in all ages here (off Wollongong and Sydney).
Onley & Scofield (2007) 'Albatrosses, Petrels & Shearwaters of the world' state
that "foraging ranges of breeding birds do not appear to overlap" (p. 135). Do
you know if that is based on evidence? I am pretty sure that steadi (with NZ
bands) were re-trapped off Wollongong (I don't know though what age the birds
were and what time of the year that was - I will ask Lindsay).
de Roy, Jones & Fitter (2008) 'Albatross, their world, their ways' erroneously
swap the culminicorn field mark of the two - see chapters steadi (p. 206) and
cauta (p. 208) under 'identification'
Cheers,
Nikolas
----------------
Nikolas Haass
Sydney, NSW
________________________________
From: Sav Saville <>
To: 'Jeremy O'Wheel' <>
Cc: 'birding-aus' <>
Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2012 5:49 PM
Subject: Shy Albatross vs White-capped Albatross
Hey Jeremy & all,
The bill spot is fine but only a discriminator when it is present, of
course.
The wingtips of birds here in NZ (and we see hundreds - maybe thousands -
each year) are hugely variable. It might just be an individual variation
thing, and I'm much more inclined to believe that, or that the variation is
due to age than subspecific difference - otherwise we are getting heaps of
cauta here (and that wouldn't seem to be very likely.........). Happy to be
proved wrong, but would need some convincing argument.
Cheers
Sav Saville
Wrybill Birding Tours,NZ
"Great Birds, Real Birders"
www.wrybill-tours.com
+64 27 680 3740
-----Original Message-----
From:
On Behalf Of Jeremy O'Wheel
Sent: Wednesday, 27 June 2012 2:06 p.m.
To: Jeff Davies
Cc: birding-aus
Subject: Shy Albatross vs White-capped Albatross
Ok cool. I only had 2 photos of birds that I could be confident were T.
steadi (because they were breeding at Auckland Island) - so it's probably
good to note that limitation with my assessment (Thanks to Bill Abbott for
the photos!). I have some vague plans of visiting the breeding islands for
both species at some point in the next few years, so if that happens, or if
anybody else is visiting either, it would be great to get
a large number of
photos of many birds to do a more robust comparison.
Thanks,
Jeremy
On Wed, Jun 27, 2012 at 11:58 AM, Jeff Davies <>wrote:
> Nikolas is correct, ****
>
> ** **
>
> when the outer most primary is without a white inner web and entirely
> dark it shows up best in flight as a right angled step. But I can find
> no evidence that it is exclusively a steadi feature or that they
> always show it. Would have been handy if it worked but the feature
> doesn't work as far as I can tell.****
>
> ** **
>
> Cheers Jeff.****
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> *From:* Nikolas Haass
> *Sent:* Wednesday, 27 June 2012 9:31 AM
> *To:* Jeremy O'Wheel; Jeff Davies
> *Cc:* birding-aus
>
> *Subject:* Re: [Birding-Aus] Shy Albatross vs White-capped
> Albatross****
>
> ** **
>
> Hi Jeremy, Jeff et al.,****
>
> ** **
>
> I second the point about the yellow base of the culminicorn in
> cauta.****
>
> ** **
>
> I also use the underprimary pattern - i.e. the 'step' in p8-p10 caused
> by more solid dark grey on both webs - to ID a 'possible steadi', as
> opposed to the throughout 'comb'-patterned underprimaries for a 'possible
cauta'
> (caused by dark grey outer webs and white inner webs). However, there
> seems to be much variation and there seems to be no robust evidence at
> all at this point (to my knowledge there is still nor
peer-reviewed
> paper on this field mark).****
>
> I disagree that this pattern is more obvious when the wing is spread.
> I think the opposite: When the wing is 'overly' spread all primaries
> appear bicoloured - even in a Salvin's Albatross, which normally
> should have a solid dark wingtip (caused by all grey visible undersides of
the primaries).
> ****
>
> ** **
>
> Cheers,****
>
> ** **
>
> Nikolas****
>
> ****
>
> ----------------
> Nikolas Haass
>
> Sydney, NSW****
> ------------------------------
>
> *From:* Jeremy O'Wheel <>
> *To:* Jeff Davies <>
> *Cc:* birding-aus <>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, June 27, 2012 8:43 AM
> *Subject:* Re: [Birding-Aus] Shy Albatross vs White-capped
> Albatross****
>
>
> Thanks everyone for replies, especially those that sent photos - they
> were very helpful.
>
> My opinion, which is admittedly still based on very limited evidence
> is this;
>
> T. cauta (Tasmanian Shy) has a yellow dot at the base of its beak when
> breeding (or at some point during its life), but doesn't always have
> this - so if you see a bird with this mark, I'd be happy to call it T.
> cauta, but if it doesn't have it, it still could be.
>
> T. steadi never has the yellow dot, but does have black
leading
> underwing primaries (probably P8-10) - however the colour of the other
> primaries in both species does vary a bit, so you can get birds with
> those 3 primaries black, and the rest white, or you can get ones where
> the difference between those 3 and the others is almost negligible -
> however if they're black, it's T. steadi. It's also more difficult to
> spot this difference with birds in flight, than when they spread their
> feathers a little landing and taking off. So ideally, to separate the
> species when they don't have a yellow dot, you need a high quality
> photo of the underside of the primaries landing or taking off.
>
> However, I should add that this conclusion is based on very few
> photos, and one stuffed bird, (as well as some anecdotes), so I'm
> definitely open to more robust evidence.
>
> regards,
>
>
Jeremy O'Wheel
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jun 22, 2012 at 11:21 PM, Jeff Davies <
> >wrote:
>
> > G'day Jeremy,
> >
> > I have also been looking at the under-wing issue between these two
> > for
> the
> > last couple of years and have found equal variation of blackness in
> > the under-primaries for both. The bill colour seems to be a good
> > feature however. I will look closer at these two birds next year but
> > would be
> very
> > interested to hear any other insights into this pair you may uncover
> > yourself.
> >
> > Cheers Jeff.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From:
> > On Behalf Of Jeremy
> > O'Wheel
> > Sent: Friday, 22 June 2012 3:10 PM
> > To: birding-aus
> > Subject: [Birding-Aus] Shy Albatross vs White-capped Albatross
> >
> > G'day all,
> >
> > Recently I've been having some discussion about the differences
> > between
> the
> > Tasmanian Shy Albatross - T. cauta - and the New Zealand
> > White-capped Albatross - T. steadi (or T. cauta cauta/steadi
> > depending on your taxonomy).
> > Various sources seem to indicate that breeding T. cauta have a
>
> yellow
> spot
> > at the upper base of the beak, while T. steadi never have this
> > yellow
> dot.
> > It has also been suggested that T. steadi has black primaries
> > 8,9,10 while on T. cauta they are black and white.
> >
> > I was wondering if anybody know more about the differences,
> > especially differences that can be identified in the field, or can
> > confirm or deny
> the
> > differences I've suggested? I was also wondering if anybody have
> > photos
> of
> > either species/spp. nesting at their various locations with the
> underwings
> > visible (esp. P8-10)?
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Jeremy O'Wheel
> > ===============================
> >
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message:
> > unsubscribe
>
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> > to:
> >
> > http://birding-aus.org
> > ===============================
> >
> >
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>
> ****
>
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