Really? HANZAB and field guide drawings match colour (or shade) for Common Diving Petrel as dark grey above and pale grey below. Not “black & white”, although at sea I guess they could look black & white. I have only ever seen Common Diving Petrel on one day and not recently but they are not that much different in colour above & below as is this bird, although rather more pale than this photo shows. I have like most of us, seen hundreds of dead Short-tailed Shearwaters and thousands of live ones. The shape looks wrong to me for a Short-tailed Shearwater (wings not narrow enough) and why would someone ask about Short-tailed Shearwater? Surely they are found dead in large numbers. Using HANZAB: Weight of Short-tailed Shearwater given as 480 to 800 grams and Common Diving Petrel given as 110 to 150 grams. Weight of this specimen given as 77 g. I suggest that being underweight is consistent with being dead, but not by that much to match a recently dead shearwater. HANZAB: Wing span of Short-tailed Shearwater given as 95 to 100 cm and Common Diving Petrel given as 33 to 38 cm. Look at the (hopefully) 30 cm ruler, if this is a shearwater, the wing span should be equal to about 3, 30 cm rulers. The wing span of this specimen is mid 30 to 40 cm, nowhere near big enough to match the shearwater.
Philip.
Philip.
