ML163408231
Contributor
Date
Location
- Age
- Not specified
- Sex
- Not specified
Observation details
*Extremely rare onshore without any tropical cyclone activity to steer it onto land (winds at the time were 10mph out of the southeast, though had been stronger & more easterly the prior day and overnight). Initially sighted just before 7:17 AM (the timestamp of the first photograph taken), while it rested on the shallow, freshwater of Back Bay perhaps 100 feet or so southwest of the Bayside Trail boardwalk's 'observation platform'. All dark body was noted at this time, clearly a Storm-Petrel by the body & bill structure but unable to see any rump patch. Roughly 2-3 minutes later the individual lifted up (timestamp of first flight photograph was at 7:20 AM), revealing a white rump and cream-colored pattern on the upper wings, and no extension of feet behind tail, which quickly helped eliminate Wilson's Storm-Petrel and narrowed possibilities to either Leach's or Band-rumped. Photographed rapidly as it flew first northward, then turned 90 degrees westward toward the far shoreline (Long Island). Quickly used cell phone to take back-of-camera photographs and texted immediately to Ned Brinkley who confirmed species to Leach's due to the presence of the forked tail, the wing pattern, and also the black line extending from the body partially through the white, v-shaped, rump patch. The bird stayed on the water, at extreme distance (visible in my 10x42 binoculars only at intervals as a small dark shape rising over the smaller waves in the more open water it had dropped onto) until 7:40 AM, when it again picked up and flew directly south around the peninsula of land that houses the Raptor Trail (former Bay Trail). I walked the trail to the end just to see if it set down again somewhere in view, but was not able to relocate. The most recent eBird record for this species in Virginia Beach currently input was 13-14 Jul 1996 at the CBBT following the passage of Hurricane Bertha; only one other city record is mentioned in The Gold Book as having occurred at Lynnhaven Inlet, 19 May 1972, though a specimen is mentioned for Back Bay, 25 Aug 1964.
Technical information
- Model
- Canon EOS 6D Mark II
- Lens
- EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM
- ISO
- 200
- Focal length
- 400 mm
- Flash
- Flash did not fire, auto
- f-stop
- f/6.3
- Shutter speed
- 1/800 sec
- Dimensions
- 6240 pixels x 4160 pixels
- Original file size
- 6.63 MB