The Fea's tales

Back in the late 1990s, Fea’s Petrels  were moving from near-mythical birds to being annually recorded, though still very difficult to catch up with. (To be precise, ‘Fea’s-type petrels’, as none had been accepted to species level at that point, or if you’re old school, ‘Soft-plumaged Petrels’, including the Southern Hemisphere version.) So in late August 1999, when Killian Mullarney saw one off Greenore Point, Wexford on the 23rd, then Baz Harding saw presumably the same lingering bird off the Pembroke–Rosslare ferry on the 26th, Paul Chapman, James McGill, and I hatched a plan. Leaving Paul’s late on the Friday night, we aimed to spend Saturday 28th going back and forth across the Irish Sea as foot passengers in the vague and frankly unrealistic hope of connecting with the bird.

The 0315 sailing from Pembroke Dock was mostly uneventful (unsurprisingly, as it was also mostly in the dark), but we did see some seabirds in the first hour of light approaching Rosslare, including a couple of Great Shearwaters – a nice result in itself. A few Arctic Skuas off the harbour wall at Rosslare added to the tally, then it was time to get back on board for the 0915 sailing back to Wales.

At about 0945, just after we had passed the Tuskar Rock lighthouse, we started seeing rafts of Manx Shearwaters sat on the sea, and I saw a bird I didn’t recognise coming up on the stern. Foolishly, I took my eye off it to check a nearby raft of Manx, but only a couple of minutes later Jimbo was screaming at us to ‘Get on this bird!’ Quickly I did so, and, glory of glories, there was a Fea’s Petrel doing straight and level past the ship at less than 100 yards range! We watched it go by, outpacing the ferry, and Paul launched into a huge celebration. Surprisingly enough, most of the few other passengers out on the observation deck retreated indoors when presented with a very large bloke swearing loudly and punching the air! Then it swung over the bow, and we legged it forward to try for more views, vaulting over a rail and (as it happened) running over the roof of the ship’s bridge. For another couple of minutes we were treated to astounding views as the bird banked in concert with a few Manx flushed by the ship’s approach, before it disappeared, quickly followed by us getting shouted at loudly by a member of the ship’s crew for being somewhere we shouldn’t be. We sheepishly retreated back over the rail, still grinning immensely, and I huddled down in a corner to hastily scribble some field notes.

We decided against repeating the crossing – after all, against all odds, we had already achieved what we had hardly dared to hope was possible and, moreover, we were confident we had seen enough to make it a definite Fea’s (though IRBC only accepted it as either/or). So that afternoon we headed back through South Wales, repeatedly singing ‘And they’re not gonna believe us, and they’re not gonna believe us, and they’re not gonna belie-e-eve us. And they can all f*** off!’

(A number of birding friends, having heard of our success, tried the same thing the next day. Sadly for them, they not only failed to connect, but the ferry broke down on the morning return crossing, stranding them for several hours in Milford Sound, agonisingly close to land on all sides but with no escape, and no chance of a second trip that day.) 

Then, a couple of weeks short of two years later, on 12 August 2001, the same crew were among the assembled throng on the Scillonian pelagic. We’d all done several of these, and clambered up to our usual position on the bridge deck – a little further from the action, but with an all-round view. By common consent, for the first several hours it was the worst Scillonian pelagic for some years – cold, foggy, and with very few birds on show. Many birders retreated below deck, and stayed there even when the chumming started. Then came the fateful tannoy from the bridge, in the quiet and ever-calm tones of Viv Stratton: ‘Soft-plumaged Petrel in the wake.’

Pandemonium! From our lofty vantage point we were all quickly on the bird, but the scenes below were extraordinary as birders frantically tried to get out of the bar and back on deck. Barely a minute after the first announcement, it was gone. The Holy Grail of seabirding, at least at that time, and many more had missed it than seen it. The wave of anguish coming up from the deck below was palpable. The ship turned around to go back to the chum slick, and after what was probably only a few minutes’ interlude (though it must have felt like a yawning chasm for those still in need) the bird was relocated. Phew! The whole ship was then treated to over an hour’s worth of good views as the Fea’s circled the ship then followed us for a while on the way back. At one point it, a Wilson’s Petrel, and an adult Sabine’s Gull were all on view at the same time. Suddenly it was the best Scillonian pelagic of all time! Spare a thought for the seven or eight people who’d bought tickets but were no-shows on the quay, though finding out that one of them was LGRE elicited less sympathy than it might – that’s birders for you.

Spool on another dozen years, to 2013. The Scillonian pelagic bird and a couple of others had been accepted as definite Fea’s (rather than the usual Fea’s/Zino’s, though it was clear that most if not all occurring were very likely Fea’s, even if not proven as such). Fea’s-types were by now almost to be expected on seawatches a few times a year, and while they had been seen from many headlands, Porthgwarra remained the prime site. On 4 August that year I headed down overnight with Joe Stockwell from Portland for what promised to be a good seawatch, and it didn’t disappoint. There were a few other familiar faces in the small crowd at PG that morning (Dan Pointon and Adam Archer amongst them), and we’d already seen a few large shearwaters when one of the Corns gently announced ‘possible Fea’s’. It was a struggle to get on it in the conditions, so you can imagine the panic going on around me, but most of us connected when it flew just inside the Runnel (though sadly one guy never did). When it disappeared round the corner after just a few minutes the celebrations started.

The subsequent split of Fea’s and Desertas Petrels means it is nigh-on impossible to specifically identify any ‘Fea’s-type’ in a vagrant context, and even the previously firmly ID’d birds have been lost to the either/or bin. As I can’t bring myself to tick a superspecies or apply a balance of probabilities criterion in this case, Fea’s is lost from my list. But that does not detract from the wonderful experiences I have had, and enjoyed sharing with others, watching these special birds.