ML129812181

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Tags

Field notes/sketch; No bird

Observation details

Panning about due north from main P.P. pull out, watching the slow, regular stream of fairly inshore Sooty Shearwaters, I noticed a procelarid, slightly further out engaged in steep, unflapping, high-arcing flight at 6:18PM. This bird was a short distance beyond the red "No. 2" buoy off the point. My first impression was of a very, very long and narrow-winged, and long-tailed Pterodroma. Turning in the wind, upperparts were a uniform, quite dark, gray-brown throughout, while underparts were a sharply contrasting, bright, luminous, clear-white, from the coverts to the throat. This striking white throat contrasted with a cleanly demarcated, gray-brown hood. Viewing the underparts, the bird showed broadening dark pigment near the wing margins reminiscent of a carpal bar. The hood appeared to dip down, just a little into the white throat, behind the eye, where the neck met the bird's trunk, giving a quasi-collared look in profile. The most striking aspect was its white forehead, separating the small dark bill from the beginning of the hood at the bird's "hairline." This created a striking facial pattern unlike any seabird expected on Monterey Bay. The skull-bill structure also gave a much more "steeply-foreheaded" shorter-billed, impression compared to the typical skull-bill proportions of expected puffinus sp, here. The bird made several long s-shaped maneuvers, apparently pushed east off what appeared to be a generally N/NW-oriented course. I watched the bird for 2-3 minutes before observation became impossible due to the big seas and the bird's growing distance from shore. Shore-based observations of any pterodroma should be treated with skepticism. Unfortunately, try as I have, I can assign no other identity to this bird, save Hawaiian Petrel.

Technical information

Model

HP Scanjet pls2320

Dimensions

3483 pixels x 2548 pixels

Original file size

1.11 MB