The sooty shearwater is a heavy-bellied shearwater with long, pointed wings that are held straight when in flight. It has a very long migration, crossing the equator twice a year from its breeding grounds in Antarctic waters to Japan, Alaska, and California in the north. The population is declining and is classified as near threatened primarily due to long-line fishing, predation by rats, climate change, and harvesting for oils and food each year by the indigenous Māori population in New Zealand.
Number of birds: Unknown
Family: Shearwaters And Petrels
Adult sooty shearwaters have sooty-brown upperparts, or darker grey in fresh plumage, with a dark tail.
On the underparts, the chin and throat are slightly paler, and there is a conspicuous white area on the underwing, while the flight feathers are dark grey with paler primary bases, and the axillaries are black. The scapulars may have a scaly pattern.
The head is dark sooty-brown, the bill is brownish-grey to dark grey, the eyes are dark brown, and the legs and webbed-feet are dull pink or grey with dusky outer toes.
Females resemble males, and juveniles are similar to adults.
Try our interactive bird identifier
Sooty shearwaters breed in late September and early October and produce 1 brood a season. They breed on islands with soil suitable for digging nest burrows, or rocky islands with crevices, and will share their breeding grounds with other species of petrels. The nest is lined with leaves and grass.
Sooty shearwaters lay 1 white egg which is incubated by both sexes for 52-56 days. The chick is covered in grey down with paler underparts. It is brooded for the first 5 days and fed at night, frequently at first but less often as the chick grows. It fledges 97 days after hatching, usually departing the island at night, and reaches sexual maturity at about 7 years.
Sooty shearwaters eat small fish, shrimp and other crustaceans, squid, and jellyfish. They will also take offal from fishing boats. It takes its prey from the surface of the water or by plunging into the sea and pursuing it underwater.
Sooty shearwaters can be seen in the UK on passage between July and October at sea or off headlands.
Britain's Birds
RSPB Handbook Of British Birds
Collins Bird Guide
Alfred Hitchcock was partly inspired to make The Birds after thousands of sooty shearwaters turned up in Monterey Bay, California, regurgitating anchovies, flying into things, and dying on the streets.
