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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

ID please (1 Viewer)

No locality?

Anyway, it certainly is a Giant Petrel, probably Southern/Antarctic (Macronectes giganteus) even though it would be very difficult - if not impossible - to exclude Northern/Hall's (M. halli) for certain from that photo. The sitting bird appear to have a dull greenish bill tip like Southern/Antarctic, but it could be an imm. Northern/Hall's as they sometimes lack the distinctive reddish bill tip of the adults. It's also difficult to say what the dead mammal is, although probably a Fur Seal (the angle is difficult, but the nose doesn't look quite right for a Sea Lion + it's too small compared to the Giant Petrels for a Sea Lion, given that the mane identify it as a male). My very tentative guess would be male South American Fur Seal.
 
Rasmus, if I saw a Giant Petrel off the coast of Namibia with a slightly greenish-yellow bill, would that be a Southern then? I thought Northern would be more likely, but bill tip didn´t fit...
 
Joern Lehmhus said:
Rasmus, if I saw a Giant Petrel off the coast of Namibia with a slightly greenish-yellow bill, would that be a Southern then? I thought Northern would be more likely, but bill tip didn´t fit...

Both species are possible - though certianly in the southern summer (Nov-March) Southern Giant is more common in Cape waters, not much to the south of Namibia. I did a pelagic off Cape Town in late November and had about 20 Southern and a single Northern. I believe in their winter, Northern increases in abundance.
 
Joern Lehmhus said:
Rasmus, if I saw a Giant Petrel off the coast of Namibia with a slightly greenish-yellow bill, would that be a Southern then? I thought Northern would be more likely, but bill tip didn´t fit...

Assuming the bill tip of the bird you saw was greenish-yellow it would certainly be a Southern. Juv. Northern often lack the reddish tip of the adults, but this just results in a bill that appear unicoloured, never (as far as I know) a bill that appear to have a greenish tip. As mentioned by Jos, both are fairly common off the South African coast. This sometimes cause some confusion as people tend to look at the names and assume the Northern has a more northernly distribution than the Southern. However, that is not the case! True, Southern occurs further south than Northern, but their distributions extent roughly equally north (indeed, if just looking at non-br. distributions Southern tend to go further north then Northern!).
 
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