Leach's Petrel - 2012 winter

Leach’s Petrel Oceanodroma leucorhoa Winter

BWP notes that stragglers remain in the North Atlantic during winter which may explain December sightings of singles at Strumble Head on the 26th 1997, Newgale on the 24th 1989, Wiseman’s Bridge on the 24th and 25th 1989 and six in Angle Bay during December 1989. Additionally, in December 2006 a total of at least 240 were reported from Strumble Head, Newgale, Druidston and Freshwater West, 150 of them at the latter locality, and singles were found stranded in car parks at Cwm yr Eglwys and Haverfordwest.

There have been no January sightings but one was at Fowborough (Daugleddau) on the 6th February 1983, 14 at Goultrop Roads on the 3rd February 2002 and six at Strumble Head on the 6th February 2002, the 2002 records part of a larger incursion when 314 were noted off Aberaeron, in neighbouring Ceredigion on the 6th February. None have been recorded in March but three were seen off St Govan’s Head on the 4th April 1998.

Graham Rees

(Covers records up to and including 2011)

References

CRAMP. S. (Editor), 1977 – 1994. Handbook of the Birds of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa : the birds of the Western Palearctic, Oxford University Press, 9 Vols.