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Hi,
I was doing an hour long porpoise watch yesterday, 17th on the high tide and at 10.25 hours, saw my 6th bird of the hour, the previous being 6 immature gulls.
This bird was flying south to north, about 400 metres out, about a metre above the waves and was uniformly dark/black. It was probably in view for about 9o seconds before turning north easterly and heading out to sea. The obvious contenders in my mind were dark phase immature long tailed skua and sooty shearwater. I dismissed sooty because I would have seen contrasting pale wing, it was smaller and more delicate than sooty and had relatively longer narrow wings and long tail. I have seen all dark long-tailed skuas before, but their wings are broader and again, this bird was smaller and different flight. The flight pattern was interesting, because it had a deep wing beat and never glided or sheared, even though the wind was northerly force 3+. The last Leach's petrels I saw were at Huttoft last autumn, but they are smaller and wing patterns showed, whilst I see storm petrels fairly regularly on Marinelife surveys I have seen many petrels and shearwaters in the southern oceans and off California, Peru and Ecuador, but the flight pattern and shape of the bird was new to me.
Thinking about it later, I thought that cruciform would be a good description of the birds shape, with long narrow wings to the fore, relatively short head and neck, but long tapering body.
The other thoughts that I had included a dark falcon, since I've seen many dark phase Elenora's falcons over the sea in Cyprus, but that species would be too big and bulky. There are also a couple of hobbies around here at the moment and so I'm very familiar with their shape and actions.
Having reviewed at home, I came to the conclusion that it must be a Bulwer's petrel. On checking a few photos on Birdguides, paler carpal patches are obvious on birds off the SW coast, but I guess they were much closer than 400 metres range. and Kev Wilson tells me that Bulwers that he's seen off the Canaries are more compact than sooty shearwaters and carpal patches do show. Another bird that he threw into the mix for me was nightjar, which is a good one to consider, but my bird was very dark/black and now white flashes in the wing.
Hey Ho!
Regards,
Cliff
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