Posted by Toe on January 12, 2016 at 19:00:13
On Dec 27, Sam Ewing, who found the Vaux's Swifts in Gainesville recently, saw an odd seabird fly by just off the beach. He wasn't sure what it was, but he knew it was not something not common and he quickly got a few photos. It all happened so quickly and these birdf fly prety fast, that the photos were not the best. He knew it was a petrel of sorts, more than likely one of the Pterodroma or Gadfly Petrels, such as Black-capped and Fea's. After much discussion over the photos and his observations, it looks like the bird he saw was a Bermuda Petrel, a first for Florida. This bird will definitely get reviewed by the FOS Records Committee, but with the photos as poor as they are, and the fact that some very distant petrels have similar field marks, it's possible it may not make it as an official record. But, you never know. It will at least be an offical report of a Bermuda Petrel, and some of us that have seen the photos are pretty confident that it's definitely that species. Goes to show you never know with pelagic birds. After all, the entire ocean is they habitat. Bermuda Petrels are one of the rarest pelagic birds on the planet, nesting only on 3-4 small islets in Bermuda, of course. I read that they once nested on Crooked Island in the Bahamas.