Carrapateira, Algarve, Portugal June 2024 (1 Viewer)

[Thijsdekruif]

Come on guys (and girls), this is Birdforum, we never give up

A Great Shearwater from The Sound Approach: dark cap, light collar, white upper-tail coverts.

Some guides mention that there is risk of confusion with an immature Gannet.

Ok, the pictures show a dark head instead (with a different shape), but I'm not familiar with seabirds near Portugal, possibly there are other candidates.


View attachment 1634637

Based on the apparent shape of the bill and length of the tail, I am still thinking Gannet and no shearwater. Only the wings don't fully fit, but with this angle and quality of the pictures, that might be and artifact.

 

[TheBlackGrouse]

Based on the apparent shape of the bill and length of the tail, I am still thinking Gannet and no shearwater. Only the wings don't fully fit, but with this angle and quality of the pictures, that might be and artifact.

Me too, based on my earlier post. These kind of wing positions are on many photos with a tele of distant birds. We all delete them as soon as possible unless some important details are shown.

The bird on the second picture has the plumage of an immature Gannet but the shape bothers me and it may be smaller.

 

[lou salomon]

Shape of the whole bird (long rear end etc) and the way it flies is all wrong for a Shearwater or a Gannet. Both have much longer wings which can be assessed even from this angle.

 

[ndsutcliffe]

The Great Shearwater suggestion fits my recollection from a size point of view (Duck sized!) and the plumage (almost) fits. But, they are not common in the area, and generally if they are seen it's in the Autumn. June would be early. I think it's more likely that my size recollection is fallible, and that it's a Juvenile Gannet. The plumage fits better even if the wing shape looks odd - but as has been pointed out - the photos are so poor that we shouldn't let that overly influence us. So I'd probably up the juvenile Gannet from Possible to Probable.

 

[lou salomon]

hooded look of a greenshank: Common Greenshank - Tringa nebularia
gannet is about 3 x the size of a duck and its wing beats are very slow. a greenshank flaps much faster - maybe you can recollect the way it was flapping? greenshank is more like a "duck size", though being much more slender. I think we would see the substantial bill of gannet. And I also think neck and head would stick out further in a gannet.

 

[ndsutcliffe]

hooded look of a greenshank: Common Greenshank - Tringa nebularia
gannet is about 3 x the size of a duck and its wing beats are very slow. a greenshank flaps much faster - maybe you can recollect the way it was flapping? greenshank is more like a "duck size", though being much more slender. I think we would see the substantial bill of gannet. And I also think neck and head would stick out further in a gannet.

My recollection is vague but I do feel that the flight was straight and seemingly a little frantic. As I mentioned before it gave the feeling of a bird that had somewhere to go and was keen to get there. So yes, consistent with faster wingbeats. And yes, I have watched thousands of Gannets from that point, and I generally don't try and photograph them. The fact that I did try and catch this one suggests I sensed this was not "just another Gannet".

I've tried to think how I can better gauge size. So - Here's the original photo and another photo (of a Whimbrel) taken from the same spot (on a different date), both on full zoom. You can hopefully see that in the Whimbrel photo, I am taking at a steeper angle, because the bird was much closer to the cliffs. But the image of the mystery bird is 30% longer. This suggests that the bird is substantially bigger than a Whimbrel?

 

[TheBlackGrouse]

About weird wing positions...

Just to give an idea, here is a group of Gannets, at the coast of IJmuiden (Netherlands), more than 10 years ago.

Normally I delete them but photos of groups always show some birds with their wings in bad positions. Had to search a few years of my pictures but I found one. The distance is 1 km (error 25 m, calculated with sensor and object size, focal length, length of bird).