ML64922351

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Observation details

Larger than Galapagos, slow flap. White belly. Brown-gray above. Very poor photos taken. I will add more details now that I am not inputting data on the phone. The photos are exceedingly bad, and perhaps not identifiable, but perhaps with my comments they are a bit more valuable. This was the second hour of pelagic birding on the Bolivar Channel, I was focused on trying to see a White-faced Storm-Petrel which I saw years ago here, or a Whale Shark. Neither happened. But nearing the end of this second hour I eyeballed something different and larger flying by, I expected it was going to be a Blue-footed Booby but it looked like a Pink-footed Shearwater. I see Pink-footed by the thousands on the pelagic trips I run out of California, and tours in Chile, so it is a species that I recognize well. It was not a windy day, so this shearwater was doing some flapping. The flaps were slow and lumbering compared to the much smalller Galapagos Shearwater. The underparts were white, and the underwing partly white but not obviously white. I could see that there was no dark cap or anything unusual. It looked lumbering enough in this low wind that I wondered about Great Shearwater. But it was not one of those on second view. One of the photos shows a Buller's like pattern on the upperwing. This is actually something that shows up on Pink-footed in some angles of light. I can attest that this bird did not have the graceful flight style of either Buller's or a pale Wedge-tailed, no contrasting dark cap of a Buller's and from what I could see the tail was relatively short. Although the photos are dirt poor, visually in the binoculars this bird was a clear-cut Pink-footed Shearwater based on my previous experience with the species.

Technical information

Dimensions

414 pixels x 274 pixels

Original file size

54.93 KB