ID Challenge #8 - closes 14 February 2011

[TonyWilson]

OK this is nasty! The plumage doesn't really fit with anything that we are likely to see in NZ so I'm going for a strange plumaged (leucistic?) Buller's Shearwater.
Cheers,
Tony.

[igor]

very pale Buller's shearwater?

[craigsteed]

Wedge-tailed Shearwater?????

[Peter Frost]

Hmm! I’m tempted to follow Sav’s dictum that any trip list of seabirds should have a number of “unidentified [species]” in it (where “[species]” is “petrel”, “shearwater”, “albatross”, or whatever other group the unidentified bird belongs to), and allocate this to that category. After much hmm-ing and hah-ing, I suggest Buller’s Shearwater, despite the pale head, nape and back, which make it look like a Streaked Shearwater, but the bill is wrong shape and colour. Is the anomalous plumage just that, or due to excessive feather wear? Why Buller’s? It seems to have the characteristic M shaped pattern on the wing. Other possibilities? Cory’s Shearwater (bill wrong colour and shape, among other things); Wedge-tailed Shearwater (hmm, just doesn’t look right; too much contrast in the wings); Little Shearwater (wing shape and attitude wrong; wing and back colour not uniform enough). So, Buller’s Shearwater — but I’m not confident.

[philbattley]

Crikey - almost forgot to check. I'm voting for Buller's Shearwater, albeit an unusual-looking one!

Phi

[GrahameNZ]

I have absolutely no idea as to what this is.
So I'll go for a juvenille of the pale morph of the wedge-tailed Shearwater, Puffinus pacificus.