Finders in the Field: Scopoli's Shearwater, Co.Cork - an Irish first
The year has been going pretty well with my passion for seabirds. A trip to Madeira with some birding friends in May produced great views of Zino's and Desertas Petrels with the highlight being Madeira's second record of Black-capped Petrel! Throw in Band-rumped Storm-petrel, Bulwer's Petrels, Barolo Shearwaters and all the Cory's you could ask for and it proved to be an awesome trip.
I was keen to photograph as many of the Cory's as I could, with the hope of maybe scoring a Scopoli's. May is a long time ago and work commitments had prevented me from getting a chance to get a proper look at my pics. I had very quickly after the trip put some pictures into a folder for easy access later.
So, on the 12th of August, with a pelagic trip planned for the next day, I decided to get the blood flowing and have a look at the folder I had set aside. Almost immediately I picked out a candidate for Scoploi's. The pictures weren't the best but it certainly looked interesting. I sent one on to my buddy and he agreed it looked pretty good. I had a quick browse through Bob Flood and Ashley Fisher's latest book on Shearwaters and thought I'd come back to it the next evening, I had to get off to bed for an early start the next day.
So roll on to our pelagic. I met 10 eager birders on the pier at Baltimore at 8am. We talked about how beautiful the weather was and what the expectations for the day might be. Flat calm sea and scorching sun are not usually the greatest pelagic weather but in the waters off West Cork there are always feeding flocks of seabirds to chase down.
We headed out into Baltimore Bay and headed south. We were soon watching small numbers of Common Dolphins and there seemed to be some shearwaters about. By 0848 we had clocked up several Great and Sooty Shearwaters amongst the flocks of Manx. Small flocks of Manx were scattered over a wide area with some feeding and some just resting on the sea. I opted to stay up front with our skipper of the boat Michael John Cadogan and direct him towards any flocks that were sitting on the water. Almost every flock of Manx had Greats and Sooties with them and we were getting fantastic views. The day was getting pretty exciting!
At 0922 a shout for Cory's went out from some of the lads on the boat. A bird up ahead with the Manx we were heading for. As we approached the flock lifted off the water and a Cory's type was with them.
I got the bird in my bins and immediately saw what appeared like some excess white in the under primaries. I dropped my bins and got my camera on it. I knew that I had to try very hard to get the best pics I possibly could and I used all the patience and skill I could muster to try to stay still and just get the pictures. Cory's is not a bird we see very often from our pelagics and certainly they don't usually come close to the boat, so this bird was breaking the norm and putting on a show, checking the boat out and doing several fly-bys. No matter what it was, this was a great experience! Incredible views!
The whole experience lasted only a minute and then we were watching Greats and Sooties here and there, another Cory's was spotted with another flock of Manxies so away we were after them again. There was a lot of excitement on board and we were all feeling blessed.
After things had calmed a bit, I had a quick look at my pictures. From the first one I was intrigued as there was clearly some white in the under primaries 8,9 and 10. I knew this was significant. I had a conversation with some of the lads on board, telling them the importance of this and that it could be a first for Ireland if it was a Scopoli's Shearwater!
That was as much time as I gave it for the moment. We had a trip to get on with and I knew everybody would certainly remember the first Cory's of the day, so I could easily ask everyone to look at their pictures later and we could get to the bottom of it.
We had an incredible pelagic. We got to do a bit of chumming and the Shearwaters kept on coming and we had plenty of Bonxies coming and going. I picked up a distant Wilson's that only a few on board got on to. I called another but lost it behind some of the clients and ended up on a Storm-petrel when my view was clear, damn! The Storm-petrels were really making us work for them, with hardly any coming in to feed in the slick. We needed better views of Wilson's. Often this is the way when there isn't much of a breeze so I decided to get the boat in gear and trail the chum basket behind. This worked a treat and soon we had hundreds of stormies with Cory's, Greats, Sooties and Manx trailing us. Loads of Gulls and a few Bonxies and an Arctic Skua came and went. No Wilson's though. I made a great effort to photograph every Cory's that came into view, with varying success but all looked classic Cory's.
After a few hours, with the chum basket clean and on board, we were under way towards Baltimore and I had a chance to relax. I had another look at the pics I'd taken of the interesting Shearwater from earlier. My phone started beeping and I looked to see that I had been sent pics of the Cape Verde Shearwater seen off the North American atlantic coast a day or two before. My reply was that it had been a good day for Shearwaters off of West Cork too with a back of camera picture of the Scopoli's type. The reaction was instant, "That looks good".
I was really getting excited now, but was tired and I knew I needed to get home to have a cup of tea and take a look at the pictures on my desktop. I had a word with everyone one by one and asked them to check their photos as I thought it could be a Scopoli's. Some of the lads looked at their shots and were getting very excited! So was I!
When I got home, I got the chumming gear out of the car and out to the back of the house, got the fish oil smelling clothes off me, washed the hands, put the kettle on and got my camera out.
As soon as I looked at the first photos on the big screen I whooped! It looked very good for Scopoli's. Very clean in the underwing, almost no dark in the lesser secondary coverts, dark spot on greater primary covert only and white in the underprimaries of 8,9 and 10. The white in primary 10 was not excessive and this worried me. It should have been more visible for a definite Scopoli's. I looked at the bill for size and checked the structure of the bird for any further hints. It definitely was not a heavy looking bird and the bill did not look huge.
I chose two of the best photo's and sent them off for expert review. I also sent them to all who were on the boat whose emails I had and conveyed to them my thoughts and asked that they wait until I had confirmation of the bird from those who would know better than I, before we started letting the news out. To my great delight, all the experts came back with the opinion that this was indeed a Scopoli's Shearwater!
My initial worries about the amount of white in on the underside was indeed a concern, but with a combination of the other pro-Scopoli's features the bird could safely be identified as Scopoli's.
We had seen the first Scopoli's Shearwater to be recorded in Irish waters. I emailed all the clients from the day and everybody was happy to have been there to witness the event. We were a very lucky few.
I would like to thank Niall Keogh, Killian Mullarney and Bob Flood for their invaluable input into the ID of this bird. I would never have been prepared to pick this bird out without having read Bob's and Ashley Fisher's North Atlantic Seabirds-Shearwaters guide. A big thank you to our skipper Michael John and to all onboard who without their participation the trip would not have been possible. Paul Connaughton. Shearwater Wildlife Tours, Ireland.
Paul Connaughton
Shearwater Wildlife Tours
16 Aug 2022
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