An Antartic white bird sighted in Grainger Bay

Its amazing what can happen when we take pictures, they remain hidden from view for years, in this case two decades, then a question pops up and those pictures are important?

A Snowy Sheathbill.

 Twenty years or so we had gone to a TBA braai at Grainger Bay near Cape Town. One of the members spotted the white bird and told me what it was, he was wondering how a Sheathbill had managed to get this far as its home is in Antartica. We assumed on a ship but why, it certainally was not bothered about our being close to him, so did some ships crew member bring him across?

Both pictures were taken with a Canon FT film camera.

I took the pictures and over the years while knowing they existed, I thought and did nothing about it. Then some months back,  I was asked about a blog entry on a Leopard Seal we had in the harbour at Hout Bay, it was on the HBYC and also the ABC marinas during its stay.

http://ckdboats.blogspot.com/2012/10/seen-in-hout-bay-leopard-seal.html

I later mentioned the white bird and the result was confirmation of what we had seen came in yesterday.

Dear Roy

Thank you for sending the pictures -We have now identified the bird!  It is a Snowy Sheathbill. Check it out here:

http://www.arkive.org/snowy-sheathbill/chionis-albus/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowy_Sheathbill

I think we must write a short note on this very soon. I am highly busy at the moment -but in the middle of October things should calm down a bit.

Thank you so much for sending this

Best regards

Katja.