'black-and-white' storm-petrel August 19th, 2007.
Southern Nantucket Shoals, MA.
This should be a Wilson's Storm-Petrel, 'digibinned' during a BBC Extreme pelagic. It flew past quickly at close range allowing for just two shots to be taken. I don't recall seeing anything out of the ordinary at the time, but while looking through my images of Wilson's from that day I noticed a couple of odd things about this bird. It appears small and compact with a small bill. Most obviously, it seems short tailed but with no obvious foot projection beyond the tail in either photograph. The body plumage also looks very black. On the other hand, it does show a noticeable upperwing bar, largely confined to the greater covert tips which look white. Like many Wilson's off Coastal MA at this time of year, it is clearly molting. Other than numerous Wilson's, the only other 'black-and-white' storm-petrel seen that day was a Leach's too distant to be photographed.
Images taken with Canon Powershot A540 through Leica 8 x 42 binoculars.
Below, a selection of Wilson's Storm-Petrel images from BBC pelagics
on July 21st and August 19th, 2007.
Stellwagen Bank, July 8th, 2006.
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