While searching through photographs of Rosemary Rock taken by Neil and Richard, I came across a solitary Sooty Tern sitting among a group of loafing and nesting Red-billed Gulls. The bird is clearly distinguishable as a Sooty Tern by its uniform dark brown crown, nape and back contrasting strongly with white underparts, and by its white forehead that does not extend back beyond the eye (to the extent that the position of the eye can be inferred in the greatly enlarged photograph).
The bird was visible in only two of the many photographs taken of the rock, having flown off between the first and subsequent passes around the island. A smudgy image of a brown tern-sized bird, about the same size as the Red-billed Gulls flying alongside it, is visible in one of my photographs as we approached the rock on the fourth and final pass.
This appears to be the first record of Sooty Tern for the Three Kings Islands, although that surely reflects the infrequency of observations rather than the rarity of the species there, given that large numbers breed on Norfolk Island, 680 km NW, and the Kermadec Islands, 1080 km NE.
A total of 38 Northern Buller's Mollymawks were counted occupying 35 presumed nest sites on Rosemary Rock, a considerable increase from the 18 birds and 15 nests (13 occupied) recorded in January 1985, the last reported count (McCallum et al. Notornis 32, 257–259, 1985).
This flight was co-funded by Birds New Zealand and the Department of Conservation's Conservation Services Programme (Project POP2017-06 Indirect Impacts on Seabirds in North-east North Island region, run by the Northern New Zealand Seabird Trust).
Peter Frost
