Bulwer's Petrel - Bulweria bulwerii
The most bizarre record of 1995 (and perhaps ever in the Netherlands) was the record of the Bulwer's Petrel
Bulweria bulwerii on August 21st 1995 at the Westplaat
near Oostvoorne (Zuid-Holland). The petrel was discovered by Aat Schaftenaar from Wageningen (the year record-holder of 1994). He was looking for a lesser golden plover Pluvialis dominica/fulva. At 8.30 am he discovered a strange bird flying above the mudflats of the Westplaat.
For a moment he thought it was a strange swift, but the long tail, dark rump and the lighter wing-panel made him realise this was a Bulwer's Petrel! Aat called accompanying birders and one of them (Bernd de Bruijn) took some 60 (...) pictures. However, these were the best pictures. All were out of focus, due to nervousness of Bernd and most probably his bad equipment!.
I arrived at the Westplaat at 10:45 am, but the bird had just gone for 15 minutes. Fortunately at 11:10 am Wim Wiegant saw the bird again, now flying out to sea. I was just in time seeing it flying north on the horizon, like a small long-tailed dark shearwater.
All photographs were taken on 21 August 1995 by © Bernd de Bruijn.
The pictures show a long winged petrel with a long almost wedge-shaped unforked tail, with lighter upperwing coverts.
In my former opinion, for any Oceanodroma, it looked impossible to have a tail held like this. For typical Oceanodroma, a closed tail would look square. However, with the passing of time, more and more photographs of Swinhoe's Petrel were published and in 2017 I saw Swinhoe's and Bulwer's alongside each other in Taiwan, so now I am more inclined to an identification of Swinhoe's Petrel.
This was supposed to be the first record for the Netherlands (cf Dutch Birding 17: 175 and 180, 1995 and Dutch Birding 18: 221-226, 1996). The Museum for Natural History in Rotterdam (Natuurmuseum Rotterdam) has a skin of a bird found alive on an
oiltanker in November 1993 (cf Dutch Birding 18: 231-234, 1996). Perhaps the bird from the Maasvlakte came from a ship too?
Sadly, in 2012 this record was finally rejected by the Dutch Rarity Committee as Swinhoe's Petrel Oceanodroma monorrhis could not be ruled out.
Do you want to go to the main-index, to the 1995-index or the next species, the Bonelli's Eagle?