There’s another Cape in Massachusetts, believe it or not. They call it Cape Ann, and they say it’s somewhere north of Boston. That Cape has a lot of rocks, but like us, it also has things like summer tourists, artists, and whale watches. Back on July 11, a birder named Andy Sanford went on one of those whale watches, and snapped a few photos of what turned out to be one of the most outlandish rare birds in Massachusetts history, once it was identified from Andy’s photos by a talented young birder and photographer named Sam Zhang. I’m going out on a limb that this bird at least passed by Cape Cod on its way to the waters off Cape Ann, thus allowing me to devote a whole bird report to this species that I had barely heard of.
I’m sure the name Juan Fernandez Petrel has crossed my vision in some book or website at some point, but I can’t say I remember it. There are scads of obscure southern hemisphere petrels named after equally obscure island chains, and busy-body ornithologists keep splitting them into ever-newer species, changing their names in the process. But, back in 2004, Tuckernuck ornithologist Dick Veit for some reason predicted Massachusetts would eventually get a Juan Fernandez Petrel. Dick was part of a blue-ribbon panel of Massachusetts birders predicting the next 10 new state records. Dick’s petrel didn’t make the top 10 since his was the only vote.
Predicting this South Pacific seabird’s appearance in the state was utterly absurd – there had never been a Juan Fernandez Petrel in the entire North Atlantic, and there are maybe 3 records in the South Atlantic, none closer than Brazil. They breed on grassy mountain slopes on one island in the Juan Fernandez archipelago 400 miles off the coast of Chile, but are otherwise not seen from land.
Hell, the Pacific coast of the US only has two records. California, with its 840-mile coastline and long tradition of offshore birding trips rich with incredible discoveries, has no records of this bird. Oregon has one, but bizarrely, the only other sighting in the US was from coastal Arizona. Did I get you with that one? Arizona of course has no coastline. So imagine the surprise of Tuscon birder Brian Gibbons when he photographed a Juan Fernandez Petrel flying over his driveway in September of 2016. This LSD trip of a bird sighting was courtesy of Hurricane Newton trucking in off the Pacific and up Baja California before taking a right into Arizona. As Nate Swick of the American Birding Association said, this is one of the greatest yard birds in US birding history.
Juan Fernandez Petrels eat mainly squid and flying fish, like many warm water seabirds. They hang out with other seabirds, but also yellowfin tuna, spinner and spotted dolphins and whales. To give you an idea of their flying prowess, they sometimes travel 2600 miles from the nest before returning to take over incubation duties from the mate. Though they nest on just one island, the population is somehow estimated at 3 million birds. That island has to be violating several fire codes.
So if you venture offshore this summer, keep an eye out for weird, lost seabirds, and make sure to snap photos. You never know, you could end up with Juan hell of a rare bird.
