ML605849811
Contributor
Date
Location
- Age
- Not specified
- Sex
- Not specified
Observation details
First there were two, then 3. Eventually we went back to the pier on the north side where I had 6 Wedge-rumped Storm-Petrels in view at the same time, and two others were still by the dam to the south. Ethan Monk reported at least 10-11 white-rumped birds, and Crossley later counted 10, but this is the number I'm confident I saw. These storm-Petrels were almost the same size as the Least Storm-Petrels. (See description of Least storm-Petrels; that ID was straightforward with good looks). They were dark Storm-Petrels with weak carpal bars (in the mostly overcast light) extending to the front of the wing. The tail was short, with a lot of white on the rump-- the combination of these two features along with overall size restricting these to Townsend's or Wedge-rumped. On almost all of the birds, the extent of white was significantly larger than the black behind it; the ratio of white to black about 2:1 or better down the middle of the tail. The tail had a very shallow fork, much lesser than I'd expect for Townsend's. There was one interesting bird that had a little bit of a black line extending towards the center of the white rump, which had me excited for a bit, but this bird was no different from the rest in terms of structure, flight style or tail fork, and I couldn't turn it into a Townsend's storm-petrel. Multiple photos from a whole bunch of people, several of them better photographers than me.
Technical information
- Model
- NIKON D5600
- ISO
- 800
- Focal length
- 500 mm
- Flash
- Flash did not fire
- f-stop
- f/7.1
- Shutter speed
- 1/1250 sec
- Dimensions
- 2257 pixels x 1509 pixels
- Original file size
- 1.05 MB