On Sunday 30th May, Simon Valle, a volunteer with A Rocha Kenya, was on the beach in front of Mwamba Bird Obs and Field Study Centre and noticed a Black Kite swooping down to feed on something on the beach - a bird corpse. Being unaware of the value of such corpses he noted more the kite being on the beach which is not particularly common along here - inland, yes, but not right on the beach. 
He happened to mention this to me in the evening over supper at which I exclaimed "DEAD BIRD?! on the BEACH?! ARG! You should have picked it up! You never know what it might be!". Points to Simon though because in the morning he remembered to go back and see if it was still there... which is was, if a little bald around the head and neck due to being eaten by probably not only the kite but also crabs, however the rest of the bird was still pretty much intact having been dead for no more than a week, I'd say. It has the clear 'tube nose' of a petrel or shearwater, and must be the latter it being a long and slender bill, the overall size being medium to large, and the wings being long and narrow too. The whole bird was dark black-brown... except for the underwings which were dark on the axillaries, but a clear silvery white on the outer underwing coverts making much of the underwing appear white but with a dark trailing and leading edge...  
The tail was quite short and not particularly rounded / elongated such that the feet would easily extend beyond the tail if the bird were in flight. The bill was black and the feet are black with paler webbing... 

All this points to basically only one possibility - not the 'commoner' Wedge-tailed or even Flesh-footed Shearwaters which are the other all-dark shearwaters found in EA waters, but a species yet to be recorded as far as I can tell with the little ref material I have at hand, in the Indian Ocean between the east coast of South Africa and the 7 records off United Arab Emirates (7th being on 3rd April 2003 reported in Birding World 16:4 - there may have been one this year that I have yet to hear of, I guess...)... a Sooty Shearwater Puffinus griseus. Given that the plumage was very worn, particularly on the primaries and tail, but also a number of worn, brown feathers on the body, and that it had started primary moult, this must be an adult bird. In Harrison's 'Seabirds' book, he refers to some records off the Middle East and suggests that there might well be a small passage birds up the Indian Ocean that is hitherto unknown. The continued smattering of records off UAE would support either this or one or two 'lost' individuals that have got into the wrong migration route into the northern Indian Ocean - one of which must be this bird discussed here.  

Sooty Shearwaters breed off the south coast of South America with a few small  
colonies off southern Australia and Tasmania and larger colonies off New Zealand.  
They spend the non-breeding season in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans but apparently tend to avoid warmer tropical waters preferring colder waters. This would explain why they are not normally found in the Indian Ocean and thus makes the few records off UAE and now this one even more interesting. The fact is, this bird must have come a heck of a long way to end up on the beach in Watamu. Given that we've been having some extremely strong SE winds the past 2 months, and last week we had the first rain for several weeks as well, this bird might well have been caught up in a storm at sea at the start of last week and not managed to survive it and been washed in. I'm no oceanographer and so can't immediately suggest how far a waterlogged bird corpse would be blown / carried by currents in about a week which is the outside time the bird  has probably been dead, but it is probably from c.50-80kms away - if anyone has any better ideas/experience, it would be interesting to know. 

I'll send a photo to Itai to put up on the website for those that are interested. A full description is being prepared to be submitted to the Rarities Committee. 

Dec 2002 it was a Red-footed Booby... last year March it was a Brown Booby,  
December it was a Red-tailed Tropicbird... now a Sooty Shearwater... You just never know what's going to turn up next... 

Colin 
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Colin Jackson
Mwamba Bird Observatory & Field Study Centre,
A Rocha Kenya
PO Box 383
Watamu, 80202
Kenya

Tel: +254-(0)42-32023 (O), 32037 (H)
Mobile 0722-842366
eml: colin.jackson@arocha.org
<www.arocha.org> 
see also <www.assets-kenya.org>