This is neat and sad at the same time. Poor Bryan’s Shearwater.
Corey is a New Yorker who lived most of his life in upstate New York but has lived in Queens since 2008. He's only been birding since 2005 but has garnered a respectable life list by birding whenever he wasn't working as a union representative or spending time with his family. He lives in Forest Hills with Daisy and Desmond Shearwater. His bird photographs have appeared on the Today Show, in Birding, Living Bird Magazine, Bird Watcher's Digest, and many other fine publications. He is also the author of the American Birding Association Field Guide to the Birds of New York.
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This is sobering, but should we really be writing this species off yet? The sea is big, and it’s hard to see what we don’t know we should be looking for.
Headline: Most Likely Extinct
Actual Content: Possibly Extinct
Carrie is right, we should be trying to find where it breeds, not write it off. There is more than one species of petrel where we have little idea where they breed.
I agree that an effort should be made but I think that the bird is most likely extinct. Hopefully now that people know that it exist(s)(ed) they will keep an eye out for it.
I have just been reading The History of British Birds by DW Yalden and there is a brief note there of some discoveries of Medieval remains of Pterodroma species from Scottish sites that do not quite fit any of the most likely species like P.feae. Was there once other species in the north Atlantic? Even more, are they still there?