I read an interesting paper yesterday that will appear in the next edition of Bulletin of the BOC. It’s co-authored by Hadoram Shirihai – Bloomsbury author, fearless adventurer and probably my favourite ornithologist.
Perhaps the most difficult of all bird groups to separate to species is the seabirds, and this is where Hadoram’s specialism lies. While he does his share of museum work, Hadoram is happy to head out into the field to look for things himself, often in spectacularly demanding conditions. And what can be tougher than spending week after week far out at sea, up and down and up and down among the choppy waves, doling out barrelfulls of a mixture of fish oil and fish guts to tempt in shearwaters, petrels and storm-petrels? For a firmly committed land-lubber like me it simply doesn’t bear thinking about.
Hadoram searching for Zino's
The fruits of this hands-on approach to seabirdology are impressive. Recent investigations include the first at-sea identification of Zino’s Petrel off Madeira, and some sensational rediscoveries of species ‘ lost’, presumed extinct. While the search for Jamaican Petrel was fruitless (this one really does seem to be a goner), Beck’s Petrel – a diminuitive version of Tahiti Petrel – was rediscovered by Hadoram off the coast of New Ireland in 2007, 79 years after the last (and indeed first) record. And in this latest paper he’s hit the jackpot again, with the discovery of a new ‘taxon’ related to Collared Petrel, found in surprising numbers off the coast of Vanuatu in the eastern Pacific. Bretagnolle and Shirihai dub the new bird the Magnificent Petrel, and here’s why.
Pterodroma (brevipes) magnificens - what a bird.
This beauty was photographed in a mixed-species seabird flock, along with Wedge-tailed and Audubon’s Shearwaters, Sooty Terns, ‘tens of noddies’ and Red-footed Boobies. Imagine that. The authors haven’t plunged in to state that its a new species, though there seem to be good grounds for it to be so (and there is DNA work in prep.).
I like seabirds a lot. Though to my shame I have never actually seen one. I realise this is bad. I thought I saw a Herald Petrel when I was on Rarotonga last year, but it turned out to be a frigatebird – a new low in a litany of misidentification.
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Hadoram’s next book for Bloomsbury Hadoram’s previous book for Bloomsbury
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