Townsend Shearwater
| Townsend Shearwater | ||||||||||
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Townsend Shearwater |
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| Puffinus auricularis | ||||||||||
| Townsend , 1890 |
The Townsend Shearwater ( Puffinus auricularis ) is a seabird from the order of the tube noses . It is threatened with extinction.
features
The Townsend Shearwater is a medium-sized shearwater with a body length of 33 centimeters. The top of the body is black and is set off seamlessly from the light underside of the body. The underside of the body is white with a black half-collar. The wings, which are white on the underside, are lined with black at the bow and the rear edge.
Like all shearwaters, it uses its long, narrow wings to take advantage of the fluctuations in wind speeds directly above the ocean waves. Between periods of flapping flight, it inserts long, energy-saving gliding phases.
Occurrence
The Townsend shearwater is a species of bird native to the eastern Pacific . Its now only breeding island is Socorro , a volcanic island in the eastern Pacific Ocean, about 440 km south of the southern tip of Lower California . Politically, the island belongs to the Mexican state of Colima , from whose coast it is a good 700 km away.
The Townsend shearwater also originally bred on the smaller islands of San Benedicto and Clarión , which, like Socorro, are part of the Revillagigedo Islands . The species has not been breeding on Clarión since 1988 and no breeding pairs have been observed on San Benedicto since the 1950s. The number of breeding pairs on Socorro is also falling sharply. In 1981 there were 1000 breeding pairs there, but in 2008 fewer than 100 breeding pairs.
Way of life and threat
Townsend shearwaters are cave breeders that breed in grassy slopes or on rocky forest edges. They are endangered by introduced cats and grazing sheep, which trample the habitat of these birds.
literature
- Martin Walters: The signals of the birds. What birds reveal about the environment . Haupt, Bern 2011, ISBN 978-3-258-07682-9 .
Web links
- Puffinus auricularis inthe IUCN 2016 Red List of Threatened Species . Posted by: BirdLife International, 2015. Retrieved October 15, 2016 ..
Single receipts
- ↑ Puffinus auricularis in the Red List of Threatened Species of the IUCN 2016.2. Posted by: BirdLife International, 2015. Retrieved October 15, 2016 ..