Sooty Shearwater Friday 11 August 2023
Reports
Sooty Shearwaters breed across the cold-water areas of the southern oceans from southern South America and the Falkland Islands to Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand, where the largest colonies occur. The world population has been estimated at 20 million birds. After breeding, Sooty Shearwaters make a huge clockwise migration into the North Atlantic and North Pacific Oceans. Travelling vast distances in their lifetime, Sooty Shearwaters hold the record for the longest animal migration recorded electronically, an astounding 40,000 miles in 200 days.
Around Scotland, Sooty Shearwater is a regular passage seabird recorded at coastal locations, usually from late summer to late autumn with most passage in August and September. On Arran there have only been eight records since 1980. The largest number was six in 2008 and the last record in 2009.
On Friday 11 August 2023, James Morrison, aged fifteen, checked the weather forecast and with the winds switching to southerly decided to try his luck seawatching across Machrie Bay.
In his own words “I arrived on site around 15:00 and got myself set up and immediately picked up a Great-northern Diver going south. Shortly after this, I picked up 2 distant Manx Shearwaters also going south. Over the next hour or so, I'd only had another 8 Manx Shears, all moving south. Things were a tad slower than I hoped for but decided to stick it out for a bit longer and I'm glad that I did. Around 15:45 I picked up a Shearwater going south, that was flying completely different to any Manx Shearwater that I have ever seen. It was moving very fast and flying in big arcs, almost loop to loop like. It would fly up really high then swoop down to the water surface without flapping its wings once and it continued to do this for the entire two minutes or so that I observed it. I knew that this bird was definitely not a Manx as it actually outstripped one as I watched it sail past, giving a good comparison between the two birds.”
James quickly grabbed his camera and managed to get a record shot of the shearwater before it moved out of range. While it was not an award-winning photograph it did show the key features, all dark in appearance, long narrow pointed wings, long necked, an almost cigar shaped body and short tailed.
Sooty Shearwater is a rare bird and in order to have this record ratified, James was prepared to complete the Rare Birds Record Form and submit it to the Clyde Birds Rarities Panel. His submission also included a photograph of the shearwater and photographs of Manx Shearwaters for comparison. The record was unanimously accepted by the panel. The panel was very impressed by the standard of submission and his remarkable ability to get a photo under the circumstances. A cropped version of this photo is shown at the top of this article. The photo below is illustrative of Sooty Shearwater and was taken by Dennis Morrison.
