Hi today’s highlights of SOSSA’s Wollongong pelagic were:
A White-chinned Petrel A Buller’s Shearwater A late Northern Giant-Petrel Two White-faced Storm-Petrels
and in Towradgi a California Quail. Does anyone know, what the status of QC is there?
Cheers,
Nikolas
Actually Nikolas I do have a comment on the Jaeger photos, they are fantastic and thanks Raja for putting them out there for us to look at. There are surprisingly fewer shots of Arctic off Australia in basic plumage on the internet compared to the other two species, I guess it’s because they are more of an inshore species while pelagic trips are focused on the continental shelf drop off zone.
Thanks Nikolas and Raja, cheers Jeff.
Sent: Monday, 30 January 2012 8:34 PM Davies; Alan Gillanders; Raja Stephenson Cc: Debi Shearwater; debi shearwater; Jennifer Green more: SOSSA pelagic off Wollongong NSW
Thanks Chris, Paul & Jeff for your comments! And yes, Alan, this is the kind of discussion that makes this forum valuable.
I agree with all three commentators and we will change the captions to these pictures. I also agree with you, Chris, that Sooty and Short-tailed are by far more similar to each other than both are to a Wedgy. I would be very embarrassed if we had captioned this bird “Wedge-tailed Shearwater”! However, I don’t necessarily agree that the comparison to an “outgroup member”, such as a Wedgy or – at the other end – to a Flutterer, is totally irrelevant. I think that the flight style (depending on the weather/wind condition) is important, too, although it apparently doesn’t always work: I am still surprised how outstanding this bird’s flight style was and how different it looked from all the other present Short-tailed Shearwaters.
As I said, I do agree that the field marks you guys mentioned are “harder” than mine and the ID should be Short-tailed Shearwater.
Here are Raja’s pictures of a Sooty Shearwater (I hope 😉
http://www.adarman.com/Birds/Petrels-Shearwaters/Sooty-Shearwater
Actually, I think that this particular bird is one of your example birds “Sooty at rest”, Paul. Especially picture 2 in Raja’s series shows that even a Sooty can show a steep forehead. This underlines that we always need to look at a combination of field marks.
BTW, I also had my first encounters with Short-tailed Shearwaters in direct comparison to Sooty Shearwaters in California, when I used to be a pelagic leader on Debi Shearwater’s trips there. Because of my failure to ID them she kicked me out and I had to flee to Australia – just kidding…
Thanks again for the comments (I am actually surprised that no one commented on some of the jaegers…)
Cheers,
Nikolas
Thanks Chris, Paul & Jeff for your comments!And yes, Alan, this is the kind of discussion that makes this forum valuable.
I agree with all three commentators and we will change the captions to these pictures. I also agree with you, Chris, that Sooty and Short-tailed are by far more similar to each other than both are to a Wedgy. I would be very embarrassed if we had captioned this bird “Wedge-tailed Shearwater”! However, I don’t necessarily agree that the comparison to an “outgroup member”, such as a Wedgy or – at the other end – to a Flutterer, is totally irrelevant. I think that the flight style (depending on the weather/wind condition) is important, too, although it apparently doesn’t always work: I am still surprised how outstanding this bird’s flight style was and how different it looked from all the other present Short-tailed Shearwaters. As I said, I do agree that the field marks you guys mentioned are “harder” than mineand the ID should be Short-tailed Shearwater.
Here are Raja’s pictures of a Sooty Shearwater (I hope 😉
http://www.adarman.com/Birds/Petrels-Shearwaters/Sooty-Shearwater Actually, I think that this particular bird is one of your example birds “Sooty at rest”, Paul. Especially picture 2 in Raja’s series shows that even a Sooty can show a steep forehead. This underlines that we always need to look at a combination of field marks.
BTW, I also had my first encounters with Short-tailed Shearwaters in direct comparison to Sooty Shearwaters in California, when I used to be a pelagic leader on Debi Shearwater’s trips there. Because of my failure to ID them she kicked me out and I had to flee to Australia – just kidding…
Thanks again for the comments (I am actually surprised that no one commented on some of the jaegers…)
Cheers,
Nikolas
This is the kind of discussion which makes this list so valuable. Thanks from a mountain based, rainforest birder, Alan ===============================
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Hi all
I think Short-tailed vs Sooty is a very interesting problem in many ways. In the hand they are always easy to tell, even ignoring measurements, just by the colour of the underwing. However, seeing that in a reliable way in the field is extremely difficult and hugely lighting dependent, so it’s very easy to be mislead, even if you know exactly what to look for.
This is where digital cameras have made a huge difference. Even though a photo lacks a whole lot of important cues, it still represents a very unbiased view of something. The photons really did this, without any filtering by millions of neurons in the brain which are there for the very purpose of letting us see things which aren’t there! This filtering is why we are so clever about what we see, but it still means that we largely see our lives through a succession of optical illusions!
Irrespective of all the ways in which Sooty and Short-tailed can appear to differ, they are still FAR more like each other than either is like anything else! While I can appreciate Nikolas’ point about confusing the bird with a Wedgy, the fact is that ANY Sooty is always going to look far more like a Short-tailed than a Wedgy, once you see it well. I am sure you could briefly think a Fluttering looked like a Wedgy, but doing so would not be support for it being a Huttons, even though you could argue that a Huttons looks MORE like a Wedgy than a Fluttering looks like a Wedgy. The difference between a Sooty and a Short-tailed is so small compared to the difference between either and a Wedgy, that temporarily thinking it looked like a Wedgy just isn’t really relevant.
I have had excellent opportunities to watch both Sooty and Short-tailed together on many occasions, and perhaps the best of these have been in California, where the argument has been expressed that you cannot tell them apart (but few would accept that). I have had plenty of examples where the difference between a Sooty and a Short-tailed was so obvious, that I started to wonder why I ever thought they were confusing. And then, just when feeling extra good about it, another bird would come along which made everything look confusing again, despite having excellent views. None of this is surprising, because it’s just an inevitable consequence of the bell curve, which is so basic to all of biology.
The bird off Wollongong strikes me as more like a Short-tailed and Nikolas as more like a Sooty, and the photos are good. The fact that we cannot instantly agree on its identity when faced with photos this good is just an unambiguous testament to the genuine difficulty of this problem!
Cheers, Chris.
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I also agree with Chris that this bird is a better fit with Short-tailed. One feature not mentioned yet is the continuity of the same pale tone across both primary coverts and primaries with the primaries not presenting obviously a tone darker than the coverts. This feature plus the short bill combined with lack of black covert markings are the strongest features here to my eye indicating Short-tailed.
Cheers Jeff.
Sorry, I forgot the hood, which indeed points toward Short-tailed Shearwater. But I am still not convinced. Further comments welcome!
Nikolas
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
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.
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Here are Raja’s photos: http://www.adarman.com/Pelagics/2012-January-28-Wollongong
Cheers,
Nikolas
Sorry, I was very tired last night: QC doesn’t mean “quality check”, it was supposed to be CQ for “California Quail”. Does anyone know if they are escapees or are they already established there (alongside with Spotted Dove, Red-whiskered Bulbul, Common Blackbird, European Starling, Common Myna, House Sparrow and European Rabbit in the same exact location)?
Nikolas