Birds and Birding's Guide to:

Watching THE ALBATROSSES AND PETRELS

Shearwater Description

It is much smaller than the last, being only about fifteen inches long, and is sooty black above and white below, with the sides of the neck mottled with grayish brown. It breeds at several stations in the Channel and along the west coast of Great Britain, as well as a few islands of the Irish coast, but the principal colony is on St. Kilda, often called the sea-birds' paradise. Its favorite breeding places are the islands with a good ocean aspect, especially such as are broken in grassy downs, and fall in crags and precipices more or less turf-grown.

Their burrows are made in the steep, grassy parts of the cliff or near their summit, and many nests are made close together, sometimes one main entrance leading to several burrows, each containing a nest. The birds are strictly nocturnal during the nesting season, but in winter they are said to feed at all hours. Other species of more or less common occurrence in the Atlantic are Audubon's Shearwater {P. Iherminieri) and the Sooty Shearwater, or Black Hagdon (P. fuliginosus), both very dark or sooty above. On the Pacific coast of the United States there are a number of species, perhaps the most abundant being the Black-vented Shearwater (P. opisthomelas) of southern California.

About fourteen or fifteen inches long, it has the upper parts a uniform sooty slate, paler on the head and neck, and the under tail-coverts wholly sooty grayish. According to Mr. A. W. Anthony, it is extremely abundant off the coast of central California in summer, and is found at all seasons of the year south of the Santa Barbara Islands. It has been found breeding on San Benito Islands, all the nests being in small caves, and on Natividad Island, an island some thirty-five miles south, where they excavate burrows often ten feet in length.

Other well-known species are the Dark-bodied Shearwater (P. griseus), Townsend's Shearwater (P. auricu-laris) of Clarion Island and western Mexico, and the Wedge-tailed Shearwater (P. cuneatus), a species supposed previously to range from the Hawaiian Islands to the Bonin Islands, south of Japan, but which Mr. Anthony has found to be abundant off Lower California in May and June. Another species of wide range is the Slender-billed Shearwater (P. tenuirostris) which ranges from the seas about Australia and New Zealand to Alaska and Japan. It is very abundant about New Zealand and retires inland, sometimes for fifty miles, to breed.

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