Figure 49. This Cook’s Petrel was photographed on 17 October 1992 approximately 75 nautical miles off San Francisco (Monte M. Taylor). This species was removed from the CBRC review list in 1988 after substantial numbers were found far off the California coast.

 

Figure 50. Cook’s Petrel, a bird normally found far off the California coast, is among the eight species of procellariiform recorded inland at the Salton Sea. Perhaps even more surprising than its occurrence at the Sea is the fact that at least four individuals have been found there during three summers (1984, 1993, and 1995)! The first of these was sketched in detail on 24 July 1984, the day it was discovered near the mouth of the Whitewater River in Riverside County (1984-196; Donna L. Dittmann).

 

 

 

COOK’S PETREL Pterodroma cookii (Gray, 1843)

Accepted: 111 (97%)	Treated in Appendix H: no
Not accepted: 4	CBRC review: records through 1988
Not submitted/reviewed: 17	Color image: none

This petrel nests on islands off New Zealand and disperses to the North Pacific. On 15 December 1995 one was found dead on the beach at Grayland, Washington, and on 1 August 2002 two petrels identified as Cook’s or De Filippi’s (P. defilippiana) were recorded roughly 76 nautical miles off Florence, Oregon (Wahl et al. 2005). Between 20 and 22 October 2005 three Cook’s were reported and photographed in waters well off that state’s southern coast (NAB 60:127; Pyle 2006). The species is considered accidental at sea off Hawaii.

Determining the status of Cook’s Petrel off the coast of California was problematic until field identification criteria became known in 1985 (Roberson and Bailey 1991, Spear et al. 1992, Howell et al. 1996). Between 1979 and 1985, the Committee accepted one record supported by photographs and five additional sightings, all with the disclaimer that De Filippi’s and Pycroft’s (P. pycrofti) Petrels were eliminated solely on the basis of known range. Eight birds recorded off Cape San Martin in Monterey County between 17 November and 1 December 1979 were, for a period, endorsed only as members of the subgenus Cookilaria, but later accepted as Cook’s Petrels. The state’s first specimen was acquired on 17 November 1983, when a first-fall female was recovered from a driveway in Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz County (Tyler and Burton 1986). Like Murphy’s Petrel (see that account), Cook’s eventually proved to be regular well offshore near the interface between warm waters of the North Pacific Gyre and cold waters of the California Current (Roberson and Bailey 1991, Roberson 1993), and the CBRC stopped reviewing records of this species after 1988. Substantial numbers have been encountered in California waters, including 55 off southern California “well beyond 100 miles from shore” 11–22 August 1988 (AB 43:167), approximately 300 in the same general area 2–16 July 1992 (AB 46:1177), and 55 approximately 90 nautical miles off Punta Gorda, Humboldt County, 19 October 2005 (Pyle 2006).

Most California records of Cook’s Petrel occur between mid May and early December, with a distinct peak in August. Remarkably, the species has been recorded multiple times at the Salton Sea: 24–29 July 1984; 10 July–6 August 1993 (possibly a second bird on 17 July); and two birds on 15 July 1995, one of which remained through 25 July 1995 (Dunn 1988, Patten and Minnich 1997, Patten et al. 2003; Figure 50).