Storm-petrels, Canaries (1 Viewer)

[opisska]

Today's ferry to La Palma really surprised me ... with Storm-petrels! The birds were not very close to the boat, so I got a lot of really bad pictures - and decided to present them in a way more suited to their quality - individually they are terrible, but maybe together they paint a better picture of the birds? I have no idea how many different individuals is this, it's taken over many kilometers of ocean, but the birds were mostly flying parallel with the boat, so it could be the same ones all the time?

My best guess is Leach's at least for the clearest pictures - which is interesting, because that's quite rare in the Canaries - and also boring because I have it

 

[Stephen Dunstan]

Are they really quite rare in the Canaries? I guess seawatching from land isn't a big thing in the Canaries at this time of year but I would expect birds to be in those latitudes. When I went on a cruise to the Canaries at this time of year we had one come on the boat.

 

[Valéry Schollaert]

Are they really quite rare in the Canaries? I guess seawatching from land isn't a big thing in the Canaries at this time of year but I would expect birds to be in those latitudes. When I went on a cruise to the Canaries at this time of year we had one come on the boat.

I agree, I've seen some Leach's on La Gomera - La Palma boat in 2015, along many other birds including a Swinhoe's Storm Petrel, many Bulwers and so on. One of my best pelagic trip in the North Atlantic ! Better than all I did in Azores, Cape-Verde and peninsulan Spain.

 

[Maffong]

I believe I see two different birds in your pictures: One that's actively moulting (1-10, 23-24) and one that's not (11-22).
Given the overall colouration including white rump, carpal bar, no white underwing it's clear these are either Leach's or belong to the various Band-rumped taxa.
The moulting one has a very deeply forked tail, very obvious carpal bar, rather brown colouration, a dark notch in the white rump, etc. which makes this a straightforward Leach's I believe.
The other one was probably farther away and thus appears smaller, but gives us also less features to decide on. It's likely also a Leach's, but the difference in moult timing leaves me wondering, whether it might be something else. I'd leave it unidentified.

 

[opisska]

Thanks! That's mostly what I was thinking but I have very little confidence with those birds, I have seen exactly one Leach's before, from an incredible distance, a few European and none of the others.

On eBird there's just a handful of records around, across decades, so I should post it. The ferry to La Palma is really something, those birds on the exact same area where I found the Boyd's Shearwater in March.

 

[THE_FERN]

The ferry to La Palma is really something,

From?

 

[opisska]

Well, Tenerife or Gomera, doesn't matter because the part that has been productive for me is the one between Gomera and La Palma, which is the same for both direct and stops-at-Gomera ferries. I don't think any other boats are coming here.

 

[opisska]

Not very relevant for the topic but in case anyone's interested about the pelagic potential if the ferry, it turned out that the fin I saw from it belonged to a Risso's Dolphin (and there was another dolphin, probably Striped). And that eas from the really suboptimal Fred Olsen fast ferry, where you can only view from one cramped area and only in a limited angle (Armas boats are infinitely better, but there is no service running during daytime now).

 

[THE_FERN]

suboptimal Fred Olsen

...That's why I was asking. I'm surprised you were able to see anything from that

 

[opisska]

There is room in the back of the ship on either side, in the area used for boarding/disembarking. You can comfortably lean against a wall with your field of view restricted to between exactly perpendicular and exactly to the rear, broken by a few pillars, but otherwise pretty good. It's useful to claim the area immediately upon boarding, nobody thinks of that, but during the sailing people get curious and start coming.