Discovering the Pincoya Storm-Petrel
Thirteen years ago, in February 2011, Peter Harrison organized and led the five-person international expedition team that made a remarkable discovery, the Pincoya Storm-Petrel, Oceanites pincoyae. The specific epithet is derived from “Pincoya,” from Chilean mythology. She is the spirit of the Chilotan Sea, good and helpful to fishermen, and freely comes to the aid of shipwrecked Chiloé Islanders.
Seabirds range in size from the great albatrosses with wingspans more than 3 meters, weighing 10 or more kilos, to the small, sparrow-sized storm-petrels that can fit into the palm of an outstretched hand and weigh less than 20 grams. Most storm-petrels have a distinctive feeding flight, with wings held raised or flat, walking, hopping and skating between splashdowns. Often referred to as “the wave-dancers,” storm-petrels have a grace and agility rarely seen in other seabird groups.
Storm-petrels include some of the least-known and most enigmatic species of seabirds in the world, the nest and eggs of some as yet undiscovered. They are generally regarded as one of the most primitive families within the order Procellariiformes. The family is often divided into two subfamilies: the Southern Oceanitinae and the Northern Hydrobatinae, which indicate their separate areas of origin in opposing hemispheres.
The discovery of the Pincoya Storm-Petrel is both unique and enthralling. The story begins February 15, 1972, when, in a remote part of Argentina some 80 kilometers inland from the Chilean seaport of Puerto Montt at El Bolson, Rio Negro, Andor Kovacs was out walking with his unleashed dog. After some excited barks, the dog emerged from a bush with a small bird in its jaws. Kovacs removed the dead bird and looked at it. It was small, all-brown except for a white rump and vent. He was a man of the great outdoors; he knew all of the common land birds of the area but did not know this one. Subsequently, he sent the corpse to the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales (MACN) where the bird was identified as a juvenile female Wilson’s Storm-Petrel, Oceanites oceanicus #52481.
Does lightning ever strike twice in the same place? In southern Argentina the answer would appear to be “yes.” On November 5, 1983, Andor Kovacs was once again out walking his dog in the same general area as 10 or so years earlier. His dog once again emerged from a bush holding another storm-petrel in its jaws. This was duly sent off to MACN. Like the first, it was identified as a Wilson’s Storm-Petrel, #53381, but it was noted that both El Bolson birds appeared small compared to the other Wilson’s Storm-Petrel skins with which they shared a drawer. Furthermore, both had extensive white on the vent which is a feature unknown in Wilson’s Storm-Petrels.
Meanwhile, against this backdrop of uncertainty surrounding the identity of the two El Bolson specimens, reports of a small, mysterious, as-yet unidentified, well-marked black-and-white storm-petrel in the Chiloé and Puerto Montt areas of Chile, were now freely circulating amongst both resident and visiting birders. In February 2009 the first images of the unknown storm-petrel were published by O’Keeffe, which further supported that these were a previously undescribed taxon. This seemed to be one of those now-or-never opportunities in life that begged to be seized. The decision was made! I would fly to Argentina and examine the two MACN specimens.
In the meantime, I began to assemble a five-person team of international seabird experts. Enter Chris Gaskin and his wife, Karen Baird, who had recently developed an air-powered net gun to capture in-flight, over the ocean, the recently re-discovered New Zealand Storm-Petrel. Michelle Sallaberry, a noted Chilean ornithologist who arranged the necessary permits to capture and measure the birds, also joined the team. We chartered a small Chilean fishing trawler and skiff, plus a good daily supply of fish scraps to chum the birds in. My wife, Shirley Metz, handled air transport, logistics and lodging.
I subsequently visited MACN on January 27, 2011, and examined the two El Bolson specimens. The white ulnar bars and distribution of white on the lower belly and vent were consistent with the recent at-sea images of the presumptive new taxon from Chile, but inconsistent with any known storm-petrel taxa. I was holding a species new to science! My hand was visibly shaking as I laid #53381 back into its drawer. That night I sent a simple coded message to the expedition team: “The albatross has landed!”
Three weeks later, February 16, 2011, our five-person team assembled in the Chilean township of Puerto Montt, where four off-shore voyages in the vicinity of Punta Redonda Lighthouse were undertaken. On that first morning, February 17, 2011, we were all very nervous and apprehensive. Our boat was loaded with fish scraps to chum in the birds, but it felt as if we were looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack. Here we were in a huge and unknown ocean looking for a bird the size of a sparrow, that somehow, we would throw a net over as it skipped and danced over the waves.
It was blowing a near gale by the time we reached the point. Black-browed Albatrosses, Pink-footed and Sooty Shearwaters were all around us. Within a few minutes of the first chum being laid, a lone storm-petrel was spotted, but was it the species we were looking for? As it drew nearer, its features became increasingly obvious, with prominent white ulnar bars, obvious central white panels across the underwing coverts, and white on the lower ventral region. These striking plumage features, inconsistent with any known taxon of storm-petrel, give Pincoya field characters intermediate between Oceanites and Fregetta.
There were only five of us on that small Chilean trawler, but the team let out a cheer that surely would have been heard in Alaska. As events turned out, the new storm-petrel proved to be the most numerous seabird species during our four days of chumming, with c. 500 seen on February 17, but in calmer waters, more than 1000 seen on the 18th, 19th and 20th of February. Eleven birds were successfully caught with our net gun.
These were some of the best days of my life. Mission accomplished.