Image of Gray-faced Petrel

Description:

Nature Watch Rescue While wandering down Otaipango on a warm sunny day with a cooling breeze coming off the moana we spotted in the distance a black rock that morphed into a bird as we got closer and thought it was a black petrel (although from the NZ Birds Online Site black pertrels have a white bill, even as chicks.) Realising that it was exhausted, black attracks heat and the tide was coming in @pjd1 sprung into action picking the bird up (2nd photo) A visual inspection of the underside (3rd photo) and the wings (4th photo) revealed no wounds but I spotted the teeth and wanted a photo of those. The bird kindly co-operated by biting pjd1 drawing blood while I got a photo (5th photo) but did not think I could get a repeat performance for another photo. Happy that the inspection was over (6th photo) we moved it to under sand coprosma (7th photo) where it could rest in the shade and out of the way of karoro, humans and vehicles. I went through all of the NZ bird online petrels and I thinki it may be Puffinus tenuirostris as that is the only one that is basically all black with a black bill.