Petrel Primer
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STUDYING SEABIRDS ow times change—and how quickly. As terrestrial frontiers for students of bird distribution have become fewer and Hmore remote, birders seeking adventure and challenge have gradually turned to the pelagic zones off North America, whose explo- ration began in earnest in the last decade of the twentieth century. No one imagined, a few decades ago, that in the twenty-first century bird- ers would spend countless hours plying the very deep waters off the Outer Banks of North Carolina, hoping to connect with some J. Brian Patteson of the seven storm-petrel species or four species of gadfly P.O. Box 772 Hatteras NC 27943 petrel now known to be visitors to these waters. Edward S. Brinkley The challenges are many: The identification of many of the lesser-known species has yet to be settled, and the range of variation in plumage is poorly known for many 9 Randolph Avenue species. As with other groups of birds, “splitting” and renaming have redrawn the Cape Charles VA 23310 checklist many times over in recent years, and birders have had to keep abreast of the technical literature on the tubenoses and their taxonomy. And then there is the habi- tat—the open ocean—which requires both experience and instrumentation to inter- pret, as well as sea-legs and some stamina, along with patience and a practiced eye to scan across what can seem an empty sea and sky. While the rewards can be great, the physical and intellectual invest- ments are commensurate. But for those birders who love the salt breezes and cornflower-blue tropi- cal waters, the attraction of the Gulf Stream and its rare fauna is irresistible. For many, the visit to Carolina’s Outer Banks has become an annual pilgrimage. 586 BIRDING • DECEMBER 2004 Fig. 1. This is a typical dark-morph Trinidade Petrel. We assume that the birds studied off North Carolina each year come from the South Atlantic, but there is also an Indian Ocean population of this species, the dark morph of which often shows a white blaze around the base of the bill, a character documented only once off North Carolina. Off Hatteras, North Carolina; August 1996. © J. Brian Patteson. WWW.AMERICANBIRDING.ORG 587 ATLANTIC GADFLY PETRELS Fig. 2. This typical pale- morph Trinidade Petrel exhibits the “carpal- ulnar” bar of the under- wing that is observed on most light morphs seen in North American waters. Off Hatteras, North Carolina; 27 August 2000. © J. Brian Patteson. In this article, we digest several clue that a jaeger is not involved. The rare and smaller Bul- decades’ worth of thinking about wer’s Petrel should also be considered, as it has been recorded the most charismatic of the Atlantic tubenoses, the agile “gad- twice off North Carolina (LeGrand et al. 1999). As with other fly petrels” of the genus Pterodroma, species that have become medium-sized tubenoses, a careful study of plumage and much sought-after by birders off both the Atlantic and Pacific structure is needed to confirm identification. coasts but that still pose a true frontier for the restless and the Like several other species of gadfly petrel, Trinidade Petrel curious. Here we consider the identification, variation, and is polymorphic in plumage and also shows variation within colorful, if confusing, taxonomic histories of the five extant these morphs. Historically, Trinidade was combined with the North Atlantic species, four of which have been conclusively Herald Petrel (P. heraldica) of the Pacific Ocean, from which documented in the ABA Area. it differs in body and bill size, plumage, and ectoparasites (Imber 1985), as well as genetically (Brooke and Rowe 1996, Trinidade [Herald] Petrel, Pterodroma arminjoniana 2000). Researchers have also split heraldica itself, with the The odds of seeing one of these sleek, small, variable gadfly two former “morphs” now recognized as distinct species: The petrels off North Carolina during the warmer months are dark form is now called Henderson Petrel (P. atrata), with good: Between 1994 and 2004, as few as three to as many as heraldica applied to the paler birds, whose call-structure and 18 per year have been seen, between mid-May and September breeding cycle differ from dark birds’, and which usually (average of 10 per year), and our understanding of the bird’s mate assortatively with other pale morphs (Brooke and Rowe appearances and behavior increases each year. These petrels 1996). In North America, the AOU (1998) recognizes the breed only on the small Brazilian islands of Martin Vaz (Mar- early work of Brooke and Rowe (1996) but has yet to rule on tim Vas) and Trinidade (Trindade) in the South Atlantic the reorganization of taxa in this complex, as is true in the Ocean and on Round Island, Mauritius, in the Indian Ocean. cases of most other recent worldwide taxonomic re-orderings At a great distance, it is possible to confuse them with shear- within the Procellariiformes. waters or jaegers, but their manner of flying—in high arcs The history of naming the petrels found on Trinidade and above the sea when the winds are brisk—should be a good Martin Vaz Islands is fascinating and still relevant to modern 588 BIRDING • DECEMBER 2004 taxonomy. Wilson (1904) and Nicoll (1909) both describe the have remarkably varied appearances, as is true in other brown gadfly petrels as nesting earlier, higher on the cliffs, tubenoses. We have not observed a freshly plumaged Atlantic and separately from the pale-bellied petrels—which were then bird with a white protopatagium (i.e., the leading edge of the called “Arminjon’s Petrels” and treated as a species separate underwing), a mark that is apparently typical of Pacific atrata from the ventrally dark trinitatis, the “[South] Trinidad (A. Jaramillo, personal communication). Observers using Har- Petrel”. This treatment was in keeping with the descriptions rison’s Seabirds (1985)—which combines arminjoniana and of these birds by the Italian explorers Enrico Giglioli and heraldica but depicts only Pacific birds’ plumages—have Tomasso Salvadori (1868), who had named the pale-bellied expected to see this mark on Atlantic birds (Patteson 1996). gadfly petrel there after their corvette’s captain, V.F. Arminjon. On some occasions off North Carolina, though, we have In fact, the pale-bellied petrel at Trinidade had probably observed darker Trinidade Petrels with paler but still dusky already been discovered—as early as 22 December 1768—and bellies. These individuals do not match any described then named Procellaria sandaliata by Sir Joseph Banks (Uni- “morph”, but several specimens in the Yale Peabody Museum versity of Sydney Library 1997), the naturalist aboard the that are labeled “trinitatis x wilsoni” are similar. Some birds H.M.S. Endeavour with Captain Cook. But that specimen has with slightly paler abdomens may also simply have more wear been lost, and the description did not come to light until after in the contour feathers, which have extensive white bases (see the description by the Italians had been published in English illustration of “intermediate morph” in NGS 2002; cf. Smith- in 1869. Note that Murphy and Pennoyer (1952) apparently sonian specimen USNM 527621). In several cases, molting considered sandaliata a nomen nudum and subsumed it under dark-morph birds have shown a mottled brown-and-white arminjoniana. protopatagial bar, as well as a paler but still dusky belly and Wilson (1904) and Sharpe (1904) also described a third species among the gadfly petrels nesting on Trinidade, which was named “wilsoni”, and in 1914, Robert Cushman Murphy visited Trinidade and did not find wilsoni among the gad- fly petrels but instead located a petrel he described as yet another new species, “the Snowy-mantled Petrel, Æstrelata chionophara” (Murphy 1914). Although a dazzling individual, this bird appears to have been a leucistic Trinidade Petrel, a “sport” as Murphy later termed it (Murphy and Pennoyer 1952), and “wilsoni” has also been forgotten, believed now to be simply an intermediate plumage between dark and light morphs. Early in his career, Murphy (1915) countered arguments by Salvin and others that all gadfly petrels on Trinidade Island belonged to the same species, but later he reversed this position, not only lumping all petrels there into one species but also combin- ing them with the Pacific heraldica, once again contra Salvin (Murphy and Pennoyer 1952). Whatever their ultimate status, all birds nesting on Trinidade Island indeed show morphometric and plumage differences from heraldica, and we treat only the Trinidade Island birds here. The dark morph The dark morph of Trinidade Petrel is a beautiful Fig. 3. Shown here are two specimens of the “wilsoni” race of Trinidade Petrel— bird, chocolate brown throughout (a bit darker on named for the Antarctic explorer Edward Adrian Wilson—taken at Trinidade Island in the head in some birds), with the underwing vari- late December 1924 by K.W. Cuyler and H. Rockwell. These birds were first described able but usually showing silvery-whitish bases to as a third species of gadfly petrel nesting on Trinidade Island, but soon thereafter all gadfly petrels nesting there were lumped into one species, Pterodroma arminjoniana. flight feathers and greater coverts, with darker tips to © Kristof Zyskowski / Peabody Museum, Yale University. both (Fig. 1, p. 587). This pattern is more muted in some birds (Gochfeld et al. 1988), and molting birds WWW.AMERICANBIRDING.ORG 589 ATLANTIC GADFLY PETRELS mottled underwing. and pale below, with a brown head and pale throat bordered Molting birds photographed off North Carolina have even by a faint, mottled brownish collar, sometimes with a barred been mistakenly interpreted (e.g., by Imber 2004) to be the appearance; the underwing is mostly pale but shows a black- larger Kermadec Petrel (P.