ML72159901

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Observation details

At 12:29 pm I observed an all dark shearwater quickly heading east to west perhaps 30-50 meters off Race Point. The shearwater was initially observed through binoculars and I was immediately struck by the small bill size.. Given the recent sighting of a Short-tailed Shearwater by Steve Howell on September 23, 2017, there has been an obvious heightened awareness of the Sooty Shearwaters traversing these waters. As such I called the bird out to Kate Sutherland and Blair Nikula who were both down at the water's edge with me. Both Kate and I began photographing the shearwater and I have included 4 of my own photos here. Given our collective inexperience with Short-tailed Shearwater, we were somewhat skeptical and cautious of the sighting. After reviewing the photos later in the day and on October 15, I thought this shearwater was a decent candidate for Short-tailed Shearwater given the very small bill, steep forehead, compact shape, seemingly blunter wing tips, and diffuse pale areas across the under wing primaries with the brighter white areas within the secondary coverts. Accordingly, I circulated these photos via email and social media and all responses were positive for the identification as STSH More specifically I was very interested in Steve Howell's take on this shearwater which was as follows: “I’d call this a ‘straightforward’ Short-tailed on structure and plumage; and interesting the wing molt is not yet completed, like the bird(s) back in September; it could even be the same as one of those (assuming there were two). The primary coverts of SOSH have dark streaks and don’t look plain like this, which is typical of Short-tailed” Given my own field observations, photo review depicting the ID features listed above, and support of the ID from others more experienced in STSH identification I'm confident at this point that this is the correct identification. ,

Technical information

Model

Canon EOS 7D Mark II

Lens

EF400mm f/5.6L USM

ISO

500

Focal length

400 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire, auto

f-stop

f/5.6

Shutter speed

1/1250 sec

Dimensions

2089 pixels x 1393 pixels

Original file size

217.26 KB