Shear surprise
A pelagic trip out of Co Cork delivered a stunning Irish first for Paul Connaughton.
ON the morning of 13 August I met a group of eager birders – John Edwards, Billy Miskelly, Lorraine Benson, Killian Kelly, Andrew Crutchley, Hugh Cotter, Gary White, James ‘Chick’ McNally and his son Jamie – on the pier at Baltimore, Co Cork, at 8 am. 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 there are always feeding flocks of seabirds to find in the waters off West Cork …
We headed south out into Baltimore Bay. We were soon watching small numbers of Common Dolphins and there seemed to be some shearwaters about. By 8.48 am we had clocked up several Great and Sooty Shearwaters among the flocks of Manx. Such flocks were scattered over a wide area and almost every group of Manxies had Greats and Sooties with them – the day was getting pretty exciting!
At 9.22 am a shout for Cory’s went out from some of the lads on the boat. A bird was up ahead with the Manx we were heading for. As we approached the flock lifted off the water and a Cory’stype 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 photos I possibly could. I used all the patience and skill I could muster to try to stay still. Cory’s is not a bird we see very often from our pelagics and they don’t usually come close to the boat, so this bird was breaking the norm and putting on a show, checking us out and doing several fly-bys.
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, and talked about the importance of this – that it could be a first for Ireland if it was a Scopoli’s Shearwater.
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 photos I’d taken of the interesting shearwater from earlier and sent some images around. The reaction was instant: “That looks good.”
As soon as I looked at the first photos on the big screen at home 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 one greater primary covert only and white in the under-primaries of 8, 9 and 10. The white in primary 10 was not excessive and this worried me. It should be more extensive 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 photos and sent them off for expert review. To my great delight, all the experts came back with a positive opinion that this indeed looked good for a Scopoli’s Shearwater. 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 indeed.
I would like to thank Niall Keogh, Killian Mullarney and
Bob Flood for their invaluable input into the ID of this bird. A big thank you also to our skipper Michael John and to all onboard. ■