I've been doing one or two pelagics most years during my annual summer vacation - the rewards have been high, but so are the opportunities for any of a potentially huge range of vagrant oceanic species to occur. Amongst those 'opportunities' are other all-dark shearwaters, perhaps lurking between the more regular sightings of Sooty Shearwater - itself, a species which has travelled thousands of miles to reach UK waters on its annual southern-hemisphere winter (our summer).
So each year, whenever "Sooty Shear" is called, my camera is swung round in the hope of capturing a few in focus pixels for follow-up checking.
The shears this evening were Sooty - but an interesting combination of white in the underwing, forehead 'slope' and bill shape - the latter, certainly ruling out anything more interesting. But I'll keep checking and photographing these, just one day...
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