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Sooty Shearwater

Sooty Shearwater

Ardenna grisea

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The Sooty Shearwater is a sleek, dark seabird of the southern oceans, famous for its fast, low shearing flight on stiff, narrow wings with a silvery flash on the underwing. It breeds in vast burrow colonies on islands around New Zealand, south-eastern Australia and the South Atlantic and makes epic circular migrations to rich subarctic waters in the North Pacific and North Atlantic. In New Zealand, where it is known as tītī, its chicks are traditionally harvested by Māori. It has declined and is listed as Near Threatened.

Did you know?

  • A dramatic influx of disoriented Sooty Shearwaters in Monterey Bay in 1961 helped inspire Hitchcock's film The Birds.
  • Some tagged birds covered about 74,000 km in a year.

About the species

Identification

A medium-sized, all sooty-brown shearwater (40–50 cm, wingspan 95–110 cm) with long, narrow wings and a slender dark bill. The underwing usually shows a pale, silvery central panel that contrasts with the otherwise dark bird. Flight is stiff, with long low glides and short bursts of rapid wingbeats. The uniformly dark underparts distinguish it from other shearwaters.

Family

Procellariidae

Size

Large (crow)

Colours

brown, grey

About the habitat

Pelagic over the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, ranging from temperate to subarctic seas; breeds on small offshore islands with burrowable soil.

Diet

Mainly fish, squid and krill, taken by dipping and pursuit-diving to considerable depths; it gathers around feeding whales and follows fishing boats.

Behaviour

A powerful, direct flier that skims low over waves, often recalling a small albatross. Highly migratory, travelling in huge flocks. It nests in burrows, visits colonies mostly at night, lays a single egg and is most vocal after dark; at sea it is usually quiet.

Sources

Photo: JJ Harrison (https://www.jjharrison.com.au/), CC BY-SA 3.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Puffinus griseus in flight - SE Tasmania.jpg

Text: Wikipedia (English), CC BY-SA 4.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sooty_shearwater

See also