Short-tailed shearwater

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Short-tailed shearwater
Short-tailed shearwater

Short-tailed shearwater

Systematics
Class : Birds (aves)
Order : Tubular noses (Procellariiformes)
Family : Petrels (Procellariidae)
Genre : Shearwater ( Puffinus )
Type : Short-tailed shearwater
Scientific name
Puffinus tenuirostris
( Temminck , 1836)

The short-tailed shearwater ( Puffinus tenuirostris ) is a 41-43 centimeter member of the petrel family .

Appearance

The birds have a completely black plumage, except on the belly, the chest, the neck, the underside of the wings where they are a little lighter. The beak is gray, the legs are black.

Distribution and way of life

This species occurs in the Pacific. At night they hunt in small groups of krill , octopus and other small fish , which they catch in a dive , diving several meters deep into the water.

Short-tailed shearwater on the sea

During the day they hunt in the open sea and only come ashore at night. From the end of April they migrate to the waters off Japan and spend the rest of the summer in the Bering Sea . From August they migrate back to the south with the help of the trade winds until they can be found again in southern Australian waters in September. From the beginning of November they will be moving out to sea again to begin their journey north. On their annual migration, they cover a total of 32,000 kilometers.

Reproduction

The birds are very loud during courtship. They breed in large colonies in South Australia and on the island of Tasmania . All eggs are laid in the colony in a period of only 12 days. Simple holes, which they dig in the soft earth, serve as nests. The male hatches the eggs. This takes 43 to 60 days. Then they alternate the partners every two weeks with the brood care. The youngsters, who are initially blind, are only fed with food, pre-digested fish or krill by their parents, otherwise they do not receive any attention from the adult birds. The young are fully fledged at the age of 13 weeks and follow their parents out to fish in the open sea.

Young short-tailed shearwater

Hazards and protective measures

Although the number of individuals is decreasing due to climate change, this species is still relatively widespread and is listed by the IUCN as ( Least Concern ) safe. In some areas of Australia, these birds are still occasionally hunted for medicinal purposes for their meat or stomach oil.

literature

  • The great encyclopedia of birds. (German translation from English), Orbis Verlag, 1996, ISBN 3-572-00810-7 , pp. 30, 55, 57.
  • Goetz Rheinwald (ed.), Cyril Walker: Atlas of the bird world. Unipart, Remseck near Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 978-3-8122-3399-6 , p. 213.
  • David Burnie: Fascination with the Wildlife. (German translation from English), Neuer Honos Verlag, Cologne 2000, ISBN 3829904789 , p. 165.
  • Christopher M. Perrins (Ed.): The FSVO encyclopedia birds of the world. Translated from the English by Einhard Bezzel. BLV, Munich / Vienna / Zurich 2004, ISBN 978-3-405-16682-3 , pp. 70-72 (title of the original English edition: The New Encyclopedia Of Birds. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2003).

Web links

Commons : Short-tailed Shearwater ( Puffinus tenuirostris )  - Collection of images, videos and audio files