A ‘Round Island Petrel’ recovered from India

JONES ET AL.: Round Island Petrel 5 A ‘Round Island Petrel’ recovered from India Vikash Tatayah, Ruth Brown, Mathieu Le Corre, Malcolm Nicoll & Carl G. Jones Tatayah, V., Brown, R., Le Corre, M., Nicoll, M. & Jones, C. J., 2016. A ‘Round Island Petrel’ recovered from India. Indian BIRDS 12 (1): 5–6. Vikash Tatayah, Conservation Director, Mauritian Wildlife Foundation, Grannum Road, Vacoas 73418, Mauritius. E-mail: vtatayah@mauritian-wildlife.org [Corresponding author.] Ruth Brown, RSPB, Etive House, Beechwood Park, Inverness, United Kingdom. Mathieu Le Corre, Assistant Director, UMR 9220 UR CNRS IRD ENTROPIE, Université de la Réunion, 97744 Saint Denis Cédex 9, La Réunion, France. Malcolm Nicoll, Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, Regent’s Park, London, NW14RY, United Kingdom. Carl G. Jones, Scientific Director, Mauritian Wildlife Foundation, Grannum Road, Vacoas 73418, Mauritius. Manuscript received on 25 February 2016. A Hadoram Shirihai ringed Pterodroma petrel was reported from southern India on 21 February 1996, by V. S. Vijayan, then the Director of the Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Conservation (hereinafter SACON), at Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. This bird had apparently been blown inland by strong winds. The bird, a Round Island Petrel, had been ringed as a chick, on Round Island (19.85ºS, 57.78ºE), Mauritius, on 12 December 1995, and had travelled a distance of 4020 km. This was the first, and to date the only, ring recovery away from Mauritius, and is the first, and only, record from India, and consequently deserves further comment. Round Island (216 ha) is an uninhabited volcanic islet lying 22.5 km north-north-east of Mauritius in the western Indian Ocean. The island supports globally important breeding grounds for the Wedge-tailed Shearwater Puffinus pacificus, Red-tailed Tropicbird Phaethon rubricauda, and White-tailed Tropicbird P. lepturus (Tatayah 2010). However, one of the most intriguing birds of this islet is the Round Island Petrel [11, 12], a name used to describe a complex of at least three species of gadfly petrels that exhibit some hybridisation between them. The most common species in the population is the Trindade Petrel Pterodroma arminjoniana, which interbreeds with the rarer population of the Herald Petrel P. heraldica, and the Kermadec Petrel P. neglecta (Brown et al. 2010, 2011; Tatayah 2010; Jones et al. 2013). In an attempt to understand the breeding biology, and nonbreeding distribution of these petrels, individuals have been ringed since the early 1970s. By December 2015, 1650 adults and 1493 chicks had been ringed on Round Island, resulting in over 13,000 recaptures, all but one being from the island. 12. A typical Round Island Petrel: Under wing plumage. A geolocator study confirms that a proportion of birds cross the equator towards India, both, on the west to the Arabian Sea, and east to the Bay of Bengal (Nicoll et al. 2016). This note details the history of the only recovery of the Round Island Petrel, and its relevance. Nik Cole Ringing & recovery 11. A typical Round Island Petrel: Upper wing plumage. A light-phase Round Island Petrel (#5H09320), ringed as a chick on Round Island on 12 December 1995, was recaptured in southern India on 21 February 1996. It had apparently been blown inland by strong wings, and had travelled more than 4,000 km. Recovery details were supplied by the Avian Demography Unit (‘SAFRING’), University of Cape Town, South Africa, and they indicated that the bird was ‘found exhausted, sick or injured; blown inland by gale-force winds’. This record was first published 28 years later in Jones et al. (2013). The apparent unlikely occurrence of P. arminjoniana had resulted in this record being listed as doubtful for India (Kazmierczak 2009), and hypothetical for South Asia (Rasmussen & Anderton 2012), the latter referring to an unpublished report from southern India. In a recent review of pelagic rarities from India, Praveen et al. Indian BIRDS VOL. 12 NO. 1 (PUBL. 26 AUGUST 2016) S. Subramanya 6 Fig. 1. Map of the ringing (Round Island), and recovery (Tiruppur) sites. (2013), unaware of the ringed specimen that had been recovered, stated the lack of additional knowledge on the provenance of this species record, and hence its occurrence in India was in dispute. W. R. P. Bourne suggested that Praveen contact us, in Mauritius, for more information. The details of this specimen, after it was recovered, have subsequently been researched by Praveen. He contacted V. S. Vijayan to get further details of the recovery. Vijayan stated that it was recovered near Coimbatore, from Tiruppur (11.11°N, 77.34°E), and brought over to SACON (Fig. 1). Who found the bird, how, and under what condition it arrived in SACON is not known. Tiruppur is more than 150 km from the nearest coastline, which is on the Arabian Sea in Kerala. Vijayan contacted the address on the ring, informing of the capture, and the bird was skinned and the mounted specimen kept for display in his room. After his tenure, the specimen was handed to Lalitha Vijayan, at the same centre, and she confirmed that the specimen was kept in her office. Additionally, she indicated that the details of the ringing were communicated to them by BirdLife International (sic. =SAFRING?). When L. Vijayan retired, she handed over all materials, including this specimen, to another scientist, the late S. Bhupathy. The specimen appears to have been lost since then. Hence, as the record currently stands, the bird recovered from southern India was ringed on Round Island, and is most likely to be P. arminjoniana; although, in the absence of a specimen, it could possibly be one of the other species that occur on Round Island, or may even be a hybrid. Discussion Newton (1956) observed petrels at sea between Cargados Carajos shoals and Mauritius in January 1955. This was the first evidence that birds were travelling north. Le Corre et al. (2012) showed that several seabird species migrate along both, the east, and west coasts of India. A geolocator study on Wedge-tailed Shearwater Ardenna pacifica from Round Island also indicates that most birds migrate to the northern, and central Indian Ocean after breeding, with major wintering areas being the south of the Indian Peninsula, and Sri Lanka (Legrand et al. In prep.). An on-going geo-locator study indicates that adult Round Island Petrels spend their non-breeding period travelling widely throughout the Indian Ocean basin north of latitude 40ºS, including the Arabian Sea, in the Indian Ocean Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) ‘Western 31- Marine’ that lies 600– 700 km west of the western coast of India (BirdLife International 2016; Nicoll et al. 2016). Tracking data on the movements of juvenile Round Island Petrels during their first year at sea, suggests that they move into the Arabian Sea, and the Bay of Bengal, and pass through Indian waters (Nicoll et al. 2016). This lends further support to the claim that the Round Island Petrel occurs in Indian waters during the non-breeding season. Historical records (Vinson 1976), and genetic analysis (Brown 2008) suggest that the petrels of Round Island represent a recent colonisation by species originating from the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. While the majority of petrels on Round Island appear most similar to the Trindade Petrel (Brown & Jordan 2009), Kermadec Petrel, and Herald Petrel are also present on the island, and all three species have been found to hybridise (Brown et al. 2010). Morphology and plumage are not accurate predictors of parentage as a bird with strong characteristics of one species have been found with haplotypes of the other (Jones et al. 2013). In light of this, the Indian bird, if it can be relocated, should be subjected to genetic analysis to confirm its identity. Acknowledgements The authors wish to thank Praveen J. for encouraging this recovery to be written up as a proper record, as well as his help, and that of Pramod Padmanabhan, and Rajah Jayapal of SACON for attempting to track the specimen. Thanks also are due to V. S. Vijayan, and Lalitha Vijayan for providing information. References BirdLife International. 2016. Important Bird and Biodiversity Area factsheet: Indian Ocean, Western 31 - Marine. Website URL: http://www.birdlife.org. [Accessed on 12 April 2016.] Brown, R. M., & Jordan, W. C., 2009. Characterization of polymorphic microsatellite loci from Round Island Petrels (Pterodroma arminjoniana) and their utility in other seabird species. Journal of Ornithology 150: 925–929. Brown, R.M., Nichols R. A., Faulkes, C. G., Jones, C. G., Bugoni, L., Tatayah, V., Gotteli, D., & Jordan, W. C., 2010. Range expansion and hybridization in Round Island Petrels (Pterodroma spp.): evidence from microsatellite genotypes. Molecular Ecology 19 (15): 3157–3170. [doi:10.1111/j.1365-294X.2010.04719.x.] Brown, R. M., 2008. Molecular ecology of petrels (Pterodroma spp.) from the Indian Ocean and NE Atlantic, and implications for their conservation management. Thesis (PhD). Queen Mary, University of London and Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London. Brown, R. M., Jordan, W. C., Faulkes, C. G., Jones, C. G., Bugoni, L., Tatayah, V., Palma, R. L., Nichols, R. A. 2011. Phylogenetic relationships in Pterodroma petrels are obscured by recent secondary contact and hybridization. PLoS ONE 6 (5). e20350. [doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0020350. www.plosone.org.] Jones, C. G., Brown, R. M., Nicoll, M. A. C., & Tatayah, V., 2013. In: The birds of Africa: Volume VIII: The Malagasy Region: Madagascar, Seychelles, Comoros, Mascarenes. (Eds.): Safford, R., & Hawkins, R., A&C Black. Kazmierczak, K., 2009. Birds of India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and the Maldives. Reprint ed. Noida, India: Om Books International. Pp. 1–352. Le Corre, M., Jaeger, A., Pinet, P., Kappes, M. A., Weimerskirch, H., Catry, T., Ramos, J. A., Russell, J. C., Shah, N., & Jaquemet, S., 2012. Tracking seabirds to identify potential Marine Protected Areas in the tropical western Indian Ocean. Biological Conservation doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2011.11.015. Newton, R., 1956. Bird islands of Mauritius. 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