Ratanakiri: Bulwer's Petrel is a species of seabird that is usually found far out on the open sea, but one has been spotted 200kms away from its natural habitat by the nature conservation team, BirdLife, at the Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary in Ratanakiri.

According to BirdLife, it’s the first time this bird species has been seen in Cambodia. The team suspects that the Bulwer’s Petrel was brought by Typhoon Kompasu that passed across southern China and northern Indochina last week.

The seabird species is rare in Southeast Asian waters and has only been documented in small numbers around the coastline of its natural habitat region. The bird usually breeds on small islands in the East China Sea and the western Pacific, as well as in some parts of the southern Japanese island of Ryukyu.

BirdLife has thanked Phallinak, a farmer in Lumphat who reported the seabird before releasing it. The organisation has congratulated its team for identifying this species in Cambodia for the first time.