June WHINRAY, Pelican colonies in . 208 1978 ]

More Pelican Colonies in Tasmania. The known Tasmanian colonies of the Australian Pelican Pelecanus conspicillatus are all on . Four were listed in The Handbook of Australian Sea-birds which was published in 1971. These were Baynes, Foster and Pelican Islands off Cape Portland in far south-eastern Bass Strait, and Penguin in the Hunters Group in south-western Bass Strait (Serventy, et al., 1971). There are also two Australian Pelican colonies in south-eastern Bass Strait in the . The southernmost island of this group is Clarkes. The two tiny Low Islets are 2.5 km off its south-eastern coast. On January 6, 1971 I flew low over these islets on the way to look at the seal colonies on the nearby Councillor Rocks. There were about 60 Australian Pelicans on nests on the larger islet and about 40 on nests on the smaller islet. The sitting birds stayed on the nests but a flock of Pelicans took off from both islets and landed on the sea some distance away. The Low Islets are in perhaps the most remote part of the Furneaux Group and I do not know of anyone ever having landed there. So the colonies are likely to suffer little interference. I shall suggest to the National Parks and Wildlife Service that the islets should be declared sanctuaries for birds. There seem to be no other Australian Pelican colonies in the Furneaux Group but there is an early local record. John Gould visited the Furneaux Group in early 1839 (Hindwood, 1938). He recorded Australian Pelicans breeding on the "Stanner's Bay Islands" (Gould, 1848). There are no later records and the area is now known as Tanners Bay. It is the northern corner of Marshall Bay on the western coast of , the largest Furneaux Group Islands.

REFERENCES Gould, J., 1848. "Pelecanus conspicillatus . .." in The Birds of , Vol. VIII. Hindwood, K. A., 1938. "John Gould in Australia." Emu 38: 94-97. Serventy, D. L., V. N. Serventy & J. Warham, 1971. The Hand­ book of Australian Sea-bird$. A. H . & A. W. Reed Sydney. By John Whinray, Flinders Island, Tasmania, 7255. AUSTRALIAN 68 BARTON BIRD WATCHER

An isabelline White-capped Albatross. At about 0945 hrs. d.s.t. on October 17, 1978, among several hundred White-capped Albatross Diomedea cauta cauta I observed a colour-aberrated bird. This bird was observed for some two hours about our boat. The albatross was completely white; however all parts of the bird that would normally be grey or black, were instead a light to dark fawn. The fawn colour varied in intensity, where the normal grey would vary in intensity, and was darkest where the normal colour on the bird should have been black. The overall impression was of a fawn albatross above and white below. The bird was easily observed and stood out among the other normal-coloured birds. There was no evidence of the bird's colouring in any way affecting or being affected by the other albatrosses. The only other Isabelline bird so far noted by the writer was a Short­ tailed Shearwater Puffinus tenuirostris which was obtained as a specimen No. 19759 for the National Wildlife Collection, CSIRO, Canberra on December 6, 1977, 11.3 miles south-east of Tathra, N.S.W. This was an adult male bird very slightly in moult with the same fawnish colouring, somewhat similar in colour to some Pomarine Sku as Stercorarius pomarinus noted in immature light-phase birds. By DAVID BARTON, 35 Ida Rodd Drive, Eden, N.S.W., 2551 . ABW First record of the Powerful Owl for the Victorian Mallee. On September 6, 1978, Bill King, Ted Schurmann and the writer were driving along the Patchewollock-Hopetoun road. At approximately 0900 hrs. e.s.t. a large owl was sighted perched near the top of a bull mallee on the edge of an open and grassed glade, much frequented, from the evidence of many fresh scratchings and droppings, by rabbits. It was seen to be a large, immature Powerful Owl Ninox strenua, with much white in the plumage, and was observed, perched, for some moments at a distance of about twenty metres. It then flew and was seen flying over the tops of the mallee for some time. Particularly impressive was the long wing-span, relatively longer, apparently, than in owls otherwise known to the observers. All three observers are acquainted with Powerful Owls, King and the writer having had several years' observational experience of the pair which used to rear one young a year at Parslow's Bridge at Yellingbo, Victoria. W. R. Wheeler does not record the Powerful Owl from the Mallee District in A Handlist of the Birds of Victoria, V.O.R.G., Melbourne, 1967, and assures us (pers. comm.) that no record of this species has been made in the Mallee since that year. His Hand list includes a southern range across the State which incorporates the Grampians. North of Portland, the species is known to occur in relatively dry country. This, therefore, is probably the first record of the Powerful Owl in the Victoria Mallee District. By JACK HYETT, 39 Alwyn St., Mitcham, Victoria, 3132. ABW Corrigendum: An error crept into my draft of "More Pelican Colonies in Tasmania". (Australian Bird Watcher 7 (6) : 208, 1978) soon after the sighting was made. It happened before I began the practice of transferring records to systems cards prior to starting each article. The number in the seventh line of the second paragraph should be "about 20" instead of "about 40". - JOHN WHINRA Y, Flinders Island, Tasmania, 7255.