Streaked Shearwater in NJ!

     Usually I wait until the after the current year has passed and give a synopsis of new birds added to the New Jersey species list.  I prefer to wait for any potential new species to be accepted by the state’s Bird Records Committee, but this latest visitor is too incredible not to share now.  On May 11, three birders aboard the Cape May - Lewes Ferry photographed a shearwater in New Jersey waters.  Photos of the bird were posted on social media to help with its identification.  The odd shearwater turned out to be a streaked shearwater!

The normal range of streaked shearwaters is the Western Pacific Ocean,  basically from Australia up along Japan and the Korean Peninsula during breeding season.  Sometimes they reach east to New Zealand and Hawaii out of breeding season.  Occasionally they have reached the U. S. mainland’s west coast.  This, however, is the first record of the species for the entire North Atlantic Ocean!

AI generated image of streaked shearwater for illustrative purposes.

Astonishing as this sighting is, New Jersey has recorded similar records in the past.  On December 5, 2023 a homeowner of a private residence posted on social media of a bird at his feeder.  The bird turned out to be a red-flanked bluetail.  This was the first record of this Asian species in the whole eastern half of the United States. 

Red-flanked bluetail.  © S. Weiss

This little bird was the first of its kind to be seen in the United States, west of Wyoming.

On October 28, 1984, another different shearwater was photographed on a pelagic trip off the coast.  This one was a Buller’s shearwater, which strayed from its Pacific Ocean range.  This is the only record of one in the North Atlantic Ocean.

Buller’s shearwater, Westport, WA.  © S. Weiss  

This bird was not unexpected during a pelagic trip in our Pacific Northwest.  One had never been seen before in the North Atlantic Ocean until 1984 off of NJ, nor since.

There have been other birds that belong in the Pacific Ocean, but were spotted over in the Atlantic.  On May 22, 2025, the crew of the Stormy Petrel II out of Hatteras, NC spotted a wedge-tailed shearwater during a pelagic birding trip.  Even more remarkable, the same boat and crew recorded the first-ever Tahiti Petrel in the Atlantic Ocean during a pelagic trip on May 29, 2018.  This bird normally resides mostly in the South Pacific Ocean and has not been spotted in again in the Atlantic.

You have to wonder, given the vastness of the oceans and the little coverage of people actually looking for birds, just how many of these vagrants are actually out there?  What other first-ever records are flying around waiting to be found?