Hi all,
There are two reports including one photo of a bird claimed as a Grey-headed Albatross on Eremaea NSW. To me the combination of bill shape and colour, eye-brow shape and head/neck colour make this bird a juv (or possibly 2nd year) Black-browed Albatross (or possibly Campbell, which to my experience should have more black around the eye at this stage). Any comments?
Cheers,
Nikolas
G’day Jeremy, Chris and Nikolas,
The Eriksen’s have taken plenty of shots on the Falklands and that’s probably where the Arkive shot is from. I’m confident the image has been stuffed up in prepress by the website, it happens a lot on that website with images presenting way too dark especially the midtones.
Cheers Jeff.
I wonder if that bird is an impavida x melanophyrs hybrid? I’m not sure of their appearance, but there is an article in Emu from 2001 that suggests hybrids exist (and that they have dark eyes);
http://www.publish.csiro.au/?paper=MU00074
Jeremy
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Thanks Chris,
As a result of my request, the report with the photo has been taken off Eremaea now. The other report of a Grey-headed Albatross (two other observers) from the same spot and same day is still on Eremaea. Not sure if they were referring to a different bird.
Yes, Chris, also in my experience the eye-patch of a young Campbell Albatross (2nd year, but also possibly 1st year) is very different from that of an adult Campbell Albatross and looks more like some smudged make-up. To me the eye-patch appears cleaner in Black-brows of the same age. But again, this may be very variable and I haven’t seen any peer-reviewed evidence supporting that. The ‘thing’ on the link you are referring to looks like an adult Black-browed Albatross with an extreme eye-brow somewhat reminiscent of that of an adult Campbell Albatross.
Cheers,
Nikolas
Certainly looks like a Black-browed to me.
From what I remember, the eye-patch difference between melanophris and impavida is apparent at a young age, long before the eye-colour means anything. So I’d go with melanophris.
Then again, what is this thing?
http://cdn2.arkive.org/media/E1/E107F013-8EBE-4D25-834B-FCFD542F0E55/Presentation.Large/Black-browed-albatross.jpg
Maybe the eye-patch is more variable than I thought…..
Cheers, Chris.
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Hi Rob and Birding-Aus,
Thanks. Yes, the consensus so far – based on the mentioned field marks – is that this bird is NOT a Grey-headed Albatross.
However, I don’t agree that the underwing in 1st and 2nd year Black-browed/Campbell Albatross are diagnostic for either species. Black-browed goes from solid charcoal grey underwings at the time of fledging through stages similar to the “hairy armpit pattern” of a Campbell Albatross. Therefore in my opinion the underwing pattern cannot be used to tell them apart at this age. To my personal experience, the eye-brow shape of the Maroubra bird points more towards Black-browed (although admittedly this is also not evidence-based and therefore not useful until proven). Unfortunately, we can’t see the eye colour in the photo, which would also be useless in the first year but becomes more and more amber in the following years [and finally yellow] in Campbell.
Grey-headed Albatross is a VERY RARE bird off NSW and heavily over-reported due to confusion with young Black-browed or Campbell Albatrosses. While juvenile and adult Grey-headed Albatross are straight forward to ID, 2nd and 3rd year birds are notoriously difficult to ID and those are the ones that cause most confusion. Adult Grey-headed Albatross has to my knowledge never been reported off NSW.
Also over-reported are Salvin’s Albatross (due to confusion with young Shy/White-capped) and Little Shearwater (due to confusion with Fluttering Shearwater in contrasting light conditions)
Cheers,
Nikolas
Hi Nikolas et al
Yes I agree looks like a imm Campbell to me (underwing looks good for Campbell). The bill shape and color doesn’t look good for grey-headed. Cheers Rob
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