ML61642511

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Tags

Dead

Media notes

Wilson's Storm-Petrel - specimen in the collection of the Royal Ontario Museum #34288.

Observation details

This is not only the first record of this species for Muskoka, but also for Ontario (OBRC published data eBird record: http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S12085907). Original date of collection is unknown. Muskoka Bird Records checklist has been entered as 15 April 1897. See notes below. This bird is the only (perhaps!) spring record for this species. The specimen (#34288) is now in the collection of the ROM and the collection tags attached to the bird state that it was found dead sometime in the spring of 1897 or 1898 at Gull Lake. This same information is quoted by several published works on birds of Ontario, including Mills (1981), and the official Ontario Bird Records Committee record for this bird (OBRC 2014; eBird http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S12085907). The location and date of collection of the Muskoka bird, however, may be different than what is indicated on the collection tags. Conflicting information surrounding the record can be found in James Fleming’s Record Book of Ontario Birds (Fleming acquired the specimen and later willed it to the ROM), correspondence he undertook with several individuals regarding the collection of the bird, and Percy Taverner’s Ornithological Journal and Notes. The earliest reference to the petrel appears in Percy Taverner’s 18 December 1897 Ornithological Journal entry: “Dr. Cornell has in his possition [sic] a petrel of some kind killed on Gull Lake or rather found dead there some few years ago. It was sent to Dr. Brodie who identified it but the label is lost.” The date of Taverner’s Journal entry, 18 December 1897, appears to eliminate the possibility that the bird was found in the spring of 1898, one of the dates suggested on the collection tag and in the OBRC (2014) record for the bird. Taverner also indicates (“…found dead there some few years ago...”) that it was found earlier than 1897. In his Ornithological Notes for this species, Taverner wrote the following: “December 18 1897 – Dr. Cornell of Gravenhurst, Muskoka, presented me with a mounted specimen of this species. He said it was found dead, floating on Gull Lake just behind the town about five years previously. The exact date of its finding is lost but Hubert Brown should have it in the Minutes of the Canadian Inst." Taverner’s comments indicate that perhaps ca.1892 (“found… about five years previously.”) is closer to the actual date of collection of the specimen. A search of both the Minutes of the Canadian Institute and Hubert Brown’s Journal by this author failed to find any mention of the Wilson’s Storm-Petrel. Further details about the Wilson’s Storm-Petrel aren’t revealed until 1905, when Fleming wrote to John Willmott, who had been the Game Warden for the Muskoka District in the late 1890’s, and John D. MacCallum, the former Chairman of the Game Commission of Ontario, seeking information they might have about the Wilson’s Storm-Petrel and Brunnich’s Murre specimens that had been collected in Muskoka. In a 20 January 1905 response to Fleming, MacCallum wrote that on 1 February 1898 he had received a report from Mr. J. H. Willmott of Beaumaris that “a Stormy Petrel had been found dead on the shore of Gull Lake.” MacCallum gives the date 1 February 1898 as the date that he received the report, not necessarily the date that the bird had been found. The date of this correspondence would also seem to eliminate the spring of 1898 as one of the possible dates the specimen was originally found.

Technical information

Dimensions

1205 pixels x 903 pixels

Original file size

163.4 KB