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Manx Shearwater | Puffinus puffinus
Noordse pijlstormvogel | Pardela pichoneta
The Manx Shearwater breeds mainly on islands around Britain and Ireland and winters in the South Atlantic off Brazil and Argentina. In the guide area it is a rare visitor. Most records come from seawatches on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica and Panama; off the Pacific coast of Mexico it appears only exceptionally.
Voice
Silent at sea. In the colony at night loud, raucous crowing calls, from the burrows and in the air.
Recording: Anthony McGeehan — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
30–38 cm. A medium-sized, black-and-white shearwater with long, straight, narrow wings. Upperparts, head to below the eye and tail blackish; underparts and underwing bright white with a narrow dark margin. Behind the ear coverts the white of the neck side curves up as a crescent. The undertail coverts are white. Bill slender and dark, legs pink with a dark outer side. Flies low over the water with series of quick, stiff beats and banking glides, alternately showing the black upperside and the white underside. Sexes alike.
Confusion species
Sargasso Shearwater Puffinus lherminieri, the small shearwater of the Caribbean side, is smaller, with shorter, broader wings, a relatively longer tail, dark undertail coverts and a faster, fluttering flight. On the Pacific side, Black-vented Shearwater Puffinus opisthomelas, Townsend's Shearwater Puffinus auricularis and Galapagos Shearwater Puffinus subalaris all have dark undertail coverts; Black-vented is also browner, with a dingier head.
Habitat
Open ocean and coastal waters over the continental shelf. Eats small schooling fish and squid, caught at the surface or in short dives. Breeds in burrows on vegetated islands and mountain slopes.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Rare visitor at sea. Most records come from the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica, around Limón, and from Panama, around Colón, partly in autumn. Off the Pacific coast of Mexico there are isolated records, including off northern Baja California and off Oaxaca, and a few reports also come from the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. Outside the guide area the species breeds mainly on islands around Britain and Ireland, and further in Iceland, the Faroes, Brittany, the Azores, Madeira and the Canary Islands, and in small numbers in north-eastern North America. It winters in the South Atlantic, mainly off Brazil and Argentina. Because little watching is done at sea, its true occurrence in the guide area is poorly known.
- Resident
- Summer visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Winter visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Seawatches from the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica and Panama offer the best chance. Among Sargasso Shearwaters the white undertail, the longer, narrower wings and the calmer flight with longer glides stand out; photographs of the undertail help with identification.
Conservation status
Not threatened, although the population is slowly declining. Most of the world population breeds in Europe, partly in a few large colonies where introduced rats are the main threat; on several islands rat eradication has led to recovery. At sea, bycatch and oil pollution play a role.
Scientific name
Puffinus puffinus | (Brünnich, 1764)
Brünnich described the species in 1764 as Procellaria puffinus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Puffinus was introduced in 1760 by Brisson. Puffinus comes from English puffin and its variants, the name for the cured nestling of the shearwater, once a delicacy. The specific name repeats the genus name. The specimen the first description was based on came from the Faroe Islands and Norway.