a paper from the british ornithologists’ union records ... · petrel (known at the time as...

The Tarporley recordOn 1st April 1908, a dark-morph KermadecPetrel Pterodroma neglecta was reportedly founddead under a tree near Tarporley, Cheshire, by ‘aman who attends the weekly market in Chester’(Newstead & Coward 1908). The bird was takento Arthur Newstead, a Chester-based taxider-mist, on Saturday 4th April 1908; it was pur-chased by him the following day and hesubsequently preserved the specimen. AlthoughSaturday was market day in Chester, and weknow that the finder attended the weeklymarket, there is no evidence that Newsteadbought the bird at the market.

At that point, the bird’s identity had notbeen fully established. Arthur Newstead con-tacted his brother Prof. Robert Newstead thenext day, 5th April; Robert saw the bird in theflesh and took measurements that sameevening. It was skinned and prepared the fol-lowing morning by Arthur Newstead. On 8thApril, Robert Newstead, a former curator of theGrosvenor Museum, Chester, compared thespecimen with material in Liverpool Museum;

he tentatively concluded that it was a KermadecPetrel (known at the time as Schlegel’s PetrelOestrelata neglecta). T. A. Coward was contactedby Robert Newstead for a second opinion andCoward saw the freshly mounted specimen (butclearly not the spread upperwing and under-wing) on 14th April; he agreed that it was a Ker-madec Petrel.

The identification was later verified at theBritish Museum (Natural History; BMNH) byDr R. Bowdler Sharpe and Mr F. du CaneGodman, and the specimen was exhibited atmeetings of the Zoological Society (12th May1908; Coward 1908) and the British Ornitholo-gists’ Club (BOC, 20th May 1908; Oldham1908). Robert Newstead and Coward publishedthe record in BB, complete with a photographof the mounted specimen by a third Newsteadbrother, Alfred (Newstead & Coward 1908; plate17). Coward later arranged for the purchase ofthe specimen for the Grosvenor Museum, whereit still remains today (plates 18 & 19). T. Iredale,who had studied the species on its breedinggrounds, later questioned the identification and

31© British Birds 101 • January 2008 • 31–38

ABSTRACT In April 1908, a dark-morph Kermadec Petrel Pterodroma neglectawas reportedly found dead in Cheshire.The record was accepted by BOURC

for more than 60 years but was removed from the British List in 1971 because the species was considered to be relatively sedentary in the SouthPacific. More recent work has shown that Kermadec Petrel wanders widely in the Pacific and that it may have been recorded in the Atlantic. Since the

original reasons for rejection were no longer valid, BOURC decided to review the record.The Committee concluded that it was not impossible for a Kermadec Petrel to occur in British waters but the circumstancessurrounding this record made it unlikely to have been a genuine vagrant.

Moreover, a commercial taxidermist involved with the record made substantial financial gains from the specimen. Such circumstances are

frequently associated with fraud.

Should Kermadec Petrel be on the British List?

Tim Melling

A paper from the British Ornithologists’ Union Records Committee

suggested that it was far more likely to be thevery similar species now known as TrindadePetrel P. arminjoniana (Iredale 1914) [note that,for the purposes of this paper, Trindade Petreland Herald Petrel Pterodroma heraldica are con-sidered separate species]. However, the speci-men was reassessed by W. R. Ogilvie-Grant ofthe BMNH, reconfirmed as Kermadec Petrel,and exhibited as such at a BOC meeting inMarch 1914 (Ogilvie-Grant 1914).

The record was included by Hartert et al.(1912), and formally accepted in A List ofBritish Birds (2nd edn, BOU 1915). The reputa-tion and involvement of both Robert Newsteadand Coward undoubtedly helped to establishthe record’s credentials. Kermadec Petrelremained on the British List for more than 60years, but was removed following review in1971 (BOU 1971). A record of Gould’s Petrel P. brevipes from Cardiganshire in 1889 wasremoved from the British List at the same timebecause its origin seemed inadequately proven(P. brevipes was then treated as a subspecies ofCollared Petrel P. leucoptera, although it is nowgenerally considered as a separate species, e.g.Gill & Wright 2006, Onley & Schofield 2007). In1971, BOURC concluded that Kermadec Petrelwas relatively sedentary and had not beenunquestionably recorded beyond the Pacific.The Committee was also concerned about thelack of details over the discovery of this extraor-dinary record.

32 British Birds 101 • January 2008 • 31–38


The circumstances of the discovery

Tarporley is about13 km southeast ofChester, 20 km fromthe nearest estuaryand almost 40 kmfrom the open coast.The corpse wasapparently quite freshwhen found, but theslightly shrunken eyessuggested that it hadbeen there a day ortwo; there were nosigns of it having beenin captivity. The birdwas full-grown and,upon dissection, wasfound to be a male;the stomach wasempty, which is a

common feature of storm-driven birds.The weather conditions at the time also

appeared to support natural occurrence.According to a contemporary newspaper articlewritten by Coward: ‘For a few days before, thewind had been blowing with considerable forcefrom the west and I have no doubt the bird hadbeen driven across the 60 miles [96 km] fromCardigan Bay before it realised it was out of itselement. It may, of course, have come up theDee estuary and crossed the shorter stretch ofland as it attempted to battle against a sidewind.’Between 25th and 31st March 1908, the winddirection was between NNW and SSW, and on31st the wind speed in Manchester was 21 mph[34 kph] (Newstead & Coward 1908).

A number of errors have crept into subse-quent accounts of this bird (including the sup-position that the bird was bought at the Chestermarket, the bird’s moribund state when foundand confusion over the roles of the three New-stead brothers – e.g. Evans 1994, Palmer 2000,Watola 2004) and this paper seeks to present atrue record of events.

Kermadec PetrelThere are two subspecies of Kermadec Petrel,juana and neglecta, which differ only in size.The nominate form neglecta breeds on anumber of islands in the South Pacific (LordHowe Island, Austral Pitcairn Islands and theKermadec Islands), while the larger juana

17. The Tarporley Kermadec Petrel Pterodroma neglecta; this photograph appeared in British Birds in 1908 (Newstead & Coward 1908).The bird has been mounted

standing up, an uncharacteristic position for a petrel.

breeds on Juan Fernandez, San Ambrosio andSan Felix Island, off the coast of Chile, but alsoin the South Pacific. There is a small outlyingpopulation in the southwest Indian Ocean onRound Island (Brooke et al. 2000). Outside thebreeding season, the species wanders beyondthe equator to 39°N in the central Pacific and to42°N in the western Pacific (contra Bannerman& Lodge 1959), although some birds remainaround the Kermadec Islands throughout theyear (Davies et al. 1991) and the species is avagrant to New Zealand and eastern Australia.

Kermadec Petrel is polymorphic, with light,dark and intermediate phases. Davies et al.(1991) found that, on Raoul Island, 17% werelight morph, 37% dark and 46% intermediate,while the figures for Meyer Island were 9%,13% and 78% respectively. The dark phase ofKermadec Petrel is confusable with TrindadePetrel, which is also polymorphic (and treatedhere as a full species); hybridisation betweenKermadec and Trindade Petrels is thought tooccur on Round Island (Richard Dale pers.comm.). Kermadec Petrels are iden-tifiable by the prominent paleprimary shafts on the upperwing(e.g. Onley and Schofield 2007), ofwhich the basal third at least isalways white. Adult Trindade Petrelsusually have dark primary shafts;these are sometimes pale at the base,although the pale area is never asextensive as on Kermadec Petrel(Brinkley & Patteson 1998).Apparent hybrids have horn-coloured primary shafts, with anywhite restricted to the very base ofthe feathers (Richard Dale pers.comm.). Plates 20–22 show theprimary-shaft coloration of a Ker-madec Petrel, Trindade Petrel, and apresumed hybrid respectively.

In 1908, the population of Ker-madec Petrels on Raoul Island (thenknown as Sunday Island) was esti-mated at 500,000 individuals (Iredale1914). The Raoul population is nowalmost extinct, owing to predation byintroduced domestic cats and rats,and harvesting by humans (Merton1970). The total world population ofKermadec Petrel is now estimated tobe 5,000–10,000 pairs (Davies et al.1991).

The BOURC reviewThe recent review of the Tarporley record wasprompted by Imber (2004), who suggested theexistence of a small breeding population in theSouth Atlantic and that three dark-phase speci-mens collected at Ilha da Trinidade, off Brazil(two on 8th April 1913 and one on 28thDecember 1975), had previously been over-looked in collections as Trindade Petrel. Theywere reidentified by Imber as Kermadec by thewhite primary shafts, although Tove (2005) sug-gested that Trindade could also show whiteprimary shafts. A sound recording of anapparent Kermadec Petrel had also been madeon Ilha de Trinidade (da Silva 1995), althoughno sonogram was available for analysis (Tove2005). Imber also gave details of five extralim-ital records of Kermadec in the North Atlantic:the Tarporley bird; one filmed at Hawk Moun-tain, Pennsylvania, during a cyclone on 3rdOctober 1959 (Heintzelman 1961); and threerecords of dark-phase birds off North Carolina.These last three records comprised sightings on

33British Birds 101 • January 2008 • 31–38


18 & 19. The Tarporley Kermadec Petrel Pterodroma neglectahas been remounted since the photograph in Newstead & Coward

(1908) and the angle of the head has been altered, but otherwise thespecimen is unchanged. Plate 19 shows the pale primary shafts with

obvious white at the base.

Tim

Mel

ling

Tim

Mel

ling

29th May 1994, 25th May 2001 and 26th May2002, the most recent two being photographed(Brinkley 1996; www.patteson.com). The twophotographed records were only tentativelyidentified by Imber as Kermadec Petrels.Trindade Petrels are rare but regular visitors tothe deep waters off Cape Hatteras, North Car-olina, but these two birds had been identified as



possible Kermadec Petrelsbecause they appeared to showsome degree of white on theupperwing primary shafts (Pat-teson & Brinkley 2004). ThePennsylvania record, thoughoriginally accepted, was laterrejected by both the AmericanBirding Association (ABA2002) and the AOU (AOU2004). Tove (2005) consideredall of these North Atlanticrecords of Kermadec Petrelquestionable, including the1994 bird, which he had seenhimself and which he main-tained was a Trindade Petrel.

Kermadec Petrel wasremoved from the British Listpartly because the species wasthought to be relatively seden-tary in the South Pacific (BOU1971). The subsequent infor-mation that showed it to bemore dispersive and wide-ranging, wandering regularlyinto the northern Pacific (e.g.Davies et al. 1991) and possiblyinto the North Atlantic (Imber2004), prompted BOURC toreview the record.

IdentificationThe Tarporley specimen wasexamined by the author in July2007. It does conform to dark-phase Kermadec Petrel of thenominate subspecies neglectaand a combination of biomet-rics and plumage charactersrules out all other possibilities.In terms of biometrics,Trindade Petrel would have alonger tail and shorter toesthan the Tarporley bird (seetable 1). The extensive and con-

spicuous white primary shafts (see plate 19)also confirm the identification as Kermadec;unfortunately, as the specimen is rigidlymounted, it was not possible to examine theunderwing pattern. The measurements made byRobert Newstead on 5th April 1908, before thespecimen was mounted, gave the wing length as11.1” (282 mm), which is too short for a male

21. Trindade Petrel Pterodroma arminjoniana, showing dark primary shafts, with a small amount of whitish at the very base of the feathers.

20. Kermadec Petrel Pterodroma neglecta, showing typically strikingly pale primary shafts; Round Island, 2007.

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22. Presumed hybrid Kermadec Pterodroma neglecta x Trindade Petrel P. arminjoniana showing horn-coloured primary shafts; Round Island, 2007.

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of the larger subspecies juana. The tail length of4” (= 102 mm) would be at the lower limit formale juana, but in the middle of the range forneglecta. The tarsus and toe measurements alsofit neglecta better, whereas bill length is consis-tent with either subspecies.

Timing of the recordThe April date seems at first unusual as it coin-cides with the species’ breeding season. Ker-madec Petrels have a protracted breedingseason, laying their single egg between Octoberand February. A typically long period of incu-bation and fledging follows (some 50–52 daysof incubation, 110–130 days to fledging; Davieset al. 1991). Post-breeding adults leave LordHowe Island and Raoul Island between Apriland June; those from Meyer Island departsomewhat later, from July to October. A lateMarch or early April arrival in Britain thusseems highly unlikely for a breeding bird; thedistance by sea from the Kermadec Islands toCheshire is around 25,000 km via the tip ofSouth America and 22,000 km via the tip ofSouth Africa, while that from Round Island isnearly 16,000 km. The period of greatest abun-dance in the North Pacific was November toJanuary (Gould & King 1967), presumablymainly from the later-nesting populations onMeyer Island. The three possible records of Ker-madec Petrel off North Carolina (see above)were all in late May, while that from Pennsyl-vania was in early October. It is of course pos-sible that a failed breeder could wander northearlier, while full-grown but sexually immatureseabirds could potentially turn up at any time.

Additional detailsA closer look at the events surrounding the Tar-porley record reveals various suggestive details.

Newstead & Coward (1908) stated simply thatthe finder regularly attended the weekly marketin Chester. However, a contemporary news-paper article by Coward refers to the finder as afarmer, adding that the bird was found in afield; Coward & Oldham (1910) confirmedthese details. A farmer in rural Cheshire wouldbe unlikely to be familiar with British seabirdsand consequently unlikely to realise that thisbird would have any more monetary value than(say) a Leach’s Storm-petrel Oceanodroma leu-corhoa or Manx Shearwater Puffinus puffinus.

The price that Arthur Newstead paid for thebird is unknown, but is unlikely to have been alarge amount. A letter from Robert Newstead toCoward on 12th April 1908 says: ‘I should haveasked you earlier (about) this find but mybrother was anxious to secure the bird beforeanything was done in the matter.’ This state-ment seems odd because Arthur had alreadybought the bird by the time Robert saw it, yetRobert wrote to Coward apologising for thedelay a full week later. Perhaps the finder mayhave taken the bird to Arthur to have the speci-men prepared (since Newstead was a taxider-mist) rather than to sell it; this might explainArthur’s initial anxiety, particularly if herealised the potential worth of the specimen.However, Arthur Newstead remained strangelyreticent about the bird, even when he owned it.A postscript to the 12th April letter from RobertNewstead to Coward states: ‘PS No one else inChester but my brothers and myself know ofthe record; and my brother Arthur is anxiousthat the matter shall rest with you and me forthe present.’ Could this reluctance be explainedby Arthur suspecting or knowing that therecord was fraudulent, and his concern overpossible exposure?

Arthur Newstead was clearly aware of the



Table 1. Biometrics (with range and sample size) of the Tarporley petrel and museum specimens of male Kermadec Pterodroma neglecta and male Trindade Petrels P. arminjoniana. Measurements of the Tarporley petrel by Robert Newstead and T. A. Coward; Kermadec Petrels from (Davies et al. 1991);

Trindade Petrels from specimens at the British Museum (Natural History) by Katrina Cook.All measurements in mm.

Tarporley P. neglecta P. n. juana P. arminjoniana(Kermadec Islands) (Juan Fernandez Island)

Wing length 282 287.4 (276–296, n=9) 298.9 (290–307, n=49) 285.6 (280–292, n=5)

Tail length 102 102.2 (98–106, n=9) 105.8 (102–113.3, n=49) 117.2 (106–124, n=5)

Tarsus 38 39.4 (37.5–41.2, n=8) 40.3 (38.6–41.8, n=49) 36.0 (34–38, n=5)

Toe 53 53.1 (50.5–57, n=5) 53.8 (51.4–56.1, n=49) 46.2 (44–48, n=5)

Bill 30 30.1 (28.9–32.6, n=10) 30.5 (29.2–32.5, n=49) 29.0 (28–30, n=5)

monetary value of his specimen. Another letterfrom Robert Newstead to Coward, dated 13thMay 1909, says: ‘Had the bird been in the pos-session of anyone but my own relatives it couldhave found its permanent resting place inChester Museum. My brother Arthur looksupon the bird as so much capital and he isdetermined to sell and not to give.’ A reply fromCoward to Robert Newstead on 14th May 1909states: ‘If the committee will raise £2.10.0, I feelfairly certain that I can raise the other £2.10.0. Iam not a rich man, but I would rather give £1myself than let it go…’ The dates show thatArthur held onto his specimen for at least 13months until the requisite fee – the specimenwas eventually purchased for £5 – was raised.

Eventually the specimen was purchased bysubscription for the Grosvenor Museum, whereit remains today (CHEGM 1908,7175). Notethat although the specimen was purchased in1909, the registration process used the date ofcollection in the accession number. Correspon-dence from Coward to Robert Newstead on14th May 1909 shows that both Coward andCharles Oldham (who exhibited the specimenat the BOC meeting in May 1908) wereintending to pay £1 each, while Robert New-stead had agreed to pay 10 shillings. It is notknown how much they eventually paid, but theremaining sum was supplied by eleven sub-scribers: A. W. Boyd, S. G. Cummings, J. Lyon-Dennison, W. H. Dobie, T. Hadfield, G. P. Miln,F. Nicholson, W. Shone, A. O. Walker, AlfredNewstead plus Arthur Newstead, who is alsolisted among those benefactors who subscribedfor its purchase for the museum.

Using the average earnings index, £5 in 1909was equivalent to around £1,820 in 2005, whichgives some idea of the significance of the feepaid to Arthur Newstead. Moreover, RobertNewstead claimed (in a letter to Coward on13th May) that ‘I ran the whole of the NaturalHistory department [at Grosvenor Museum] onan annual expenditure of £20 – it was oftenless!’

Was the Tarporley record a fraud?Both Coward and Robert Newstead had excel-lent reputations and there is no reason tosuspect that they would have been involved inany fraud. Coward was an acknowledged experton birds. By 1908, he had already published TheBirds of Cheshire (1900) with Charles Oldham,and was working on the landmark ‘Wayside and

Woodland’ series The Birds of the British Islesand their Eggs (Coward 1920). Robert Newsteadwas curator of the Chester (Grosvenor)Museum from 1886 until 1905, and maintainedlinks with the museum thereafter. He held a Fel-lowship of the Royal Society and was also aChester City Magistrate from 1913 to 1946. It isless easy to be confident that either ArthurNewstead or the unnamed finder were notinvolved in fraud, as both profited from thespecimen. Arthur was fully aware that it hadgreat value, while the small delay betweenArthur first seeing and subsequently buying thespecimen might suggest that the finder was alsoaware that it was valuable.

There seems to have been no concern aboutfraud at the time. Even though Robert New-stead and his friend Coward might have beenreluctant to consider Arthur Newstead’sinvolvement as suspicious, it seems unlikely thatthey would have been willing to pay such a highprice for a bird that had not arrived here innatural circumstances. Nevertheless, theaccount of the finding circumstances – the birdbeing found in a field by a farmer – cameentirely from Arthur Newstead, and there wasno independent corroboration. Coward laterexpressed a general concern over fraudulentrecords: ‘Greedy collectors, by no means anextinct class, have only themselves to thank formuch of the fraud which surrounds the “iden-tity” of species’ (Coward 1922), although, byarranging to pay such a high price for thisspecimen for the museum, Coward may havefuelled the trade that he later criticised. At thetime, there were already two Pterodroma petrelson the British List (as noted above, the 1889Gould’s Petrel was subsequently removed,although the record of Black-capped Petrel P.hasitata from Norfolk in 1850 still remains), sothe occurrence of a third species would nothave seemed implausible to both Coward andRobert Newstead.

The bird was found under a tree in a field,the implication being that it had flown into thetree. This in itself would be extremely unusualand indeed no physical evidence of collisioninjuries, such as damage to the bill or brokenbones, was reported. Records of unusualseabirds inland in Britain are rare, but notunprecedented. The first two records of Black-browed Albatross Thalassarche melanophris wereboth found inland, and alive – in Cam-bridgeshire in 1897 (Ibis 1897: 625) and in Der-



byshire in 1952 (Brit. Birds 46: 110–111,307–310); a Magnificent Frigatebird Fregatamagnificens appeared in a field in Shropshire in2005 (Eaton et al. 2005); while Cory’s Calonec-tris diomedea, Great Puffinus gravis and NorthAtlantic Little Shearwaters P. baroli have allturned up alive at inland sites, records of thelast-named species including one in Cheshire(Brit. Birds 51: 354–355; 53: 158). In addition,within the past year there has been the remark-able saga of the overland Yellow-nosed AlbatrossT. chlororhynchos, with records in Derbyshireand inland Lincolnshire (see Brit. Birds 100:512–513). Elsewhere in Europe there are evenmore unlikely records, such as the MadeiranPetrel Oceanodroma castro found on a frozenlake in Finland in 1993 (Birding World 6: 65).

Seabirds can travel enormous distances andrare seabirds can turn up almost anywhere;consider, for example, the Long-billedBrachyramphus perdix and Ancient MurreletsSynthliboramphus antiquus and Aleutian TernOnychoprion aleutica that have all appeared inBritain. Nonetheless, Kermadec Petrel is excep-tionally rare in the Atlantic. Only three speci-mens exist (from Ilha da Trindade; see above),and the identity of these has been called intoquestion (Tove 2005). None of the NorthAtlantic records can be regarded as certain,although in the author’s opinion, the Pennsyl-vanian record does appear to be KermadecPetrel.

It is conceivable that the specimen arrived inBritain by ship. By 1908, there was known trans-portation of frozen specimens to Britain fromthe southern hemisphere. For example, twoWilson’s Storm-petrels Oceanites oceanicus ofthe most southerly race exasperatus werelabelled in Rothschild’s collection as boughtfrozen from Leadenhall Market on 2nd March1905 (Brit. Birds 56: 33–38). If stored appropri-ately on the journey, such specimens would havethe appearance of freshly obtained birds. Theport of Chester was receiving only occasionalvessels at this time (three ships in 1907; P. Lynchpers. comm.). However, ports were operationalon both sides of the Mersey, and at Salford withthe opening of the newly constructed Man-chester Ship Canal. Any of these ports couldconceivably have been the entry point.

Ideally, when assessing a potential first forBritain, BOURC wishes to know exactly whofound the specimen. However, we have toaccept that many nineteenth- and early twen-

tieth-century published reports of rare birdsmade no reference to the actual finders. Thesewere not infrequently manual labourers, whowere unlikely to write up and publish suchnotes themselves. BOURC voted to uphold therejection of this record in the light of the newinformation (BOURC in prep.). Membersagreed that the arrival of a Kermadec Petrelinland in Britain would be possible, butextremely unlikely. The fact that a Manx Shear-water ringed in Britain was recorded in Aus-tralia shows that seabirds of this size arepotentially capable of making such a journey(Kinsky & Fowler 1973). However, the prov-enance and the involvement of Arthur New-stead, a professional taxidermist who broughtthe record to light and clearly sought to profitfrom the bird, combine to raise significantdoubt that this bird was a genuine vagrant.BOURC concluded that the record was not suf-ficiently robust to stand as the sole occurrencefor Britain and the Western Palearctic.

Acknowledgments

Both current and past members of BOURC havecontributed to the assessment of this record: ColinBradshaw, Mar tin Collinson, Andrew Harrop, AndrewLassey, Ian Lewington, Bob McGowan, Eric Meek, RichardMillington, Tony Prater and Steve Votier. Andrew Harropand Bob McGowan have commented extensively on earlydrafts of this paper, while Ken Spencer’s input is gratefullyacknowledged. Richard Dale provided much usefuldiscussion and photographs of Kermadec and TrindadePetrels, and their hybrids. Ian Dawson provided helpfulreferences. The Alexander Library in Oxford suppliedcorrespondence from T. A. Coward’s archive. Katrina Cook(Natural History Museum, Tring) measured skins andprovided photographs of Pterodroma petrels.The NationalMuseums of Scotland permitted access to the skincollections to help confirm the identification. KateRiddington at Grosvenor Museum, Chester, providedaccess to the Tarporley specimen and supplied muchinformation on the Newstead brother s, includingcorrespondence between Rober t Newstead and T. A.Coward. Pam Lynch, Heritage Officer, Chester CityCouncil, provided information on Chester Port, ChesterMarkets and Arthur Newstead.W. R. P. Bourne contributedhelpful comment on this record prior to reassessment byBOURC.

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Tim Melling, RSPB, Westleigh Mews, Wakefield Road, Denby Dale, West Yorkshire HD8 8QD

Kermadec Petrel Pterodroma neglecta, Round Island, 2007.

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a paper from the british ornithologists’ union records ... · petrel (known at the time as...

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