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It’s that time of year when a young man’s thoughts turn to tropical seabirds like the Christmas Shearwater… wait, that doesn’t work! In fact, if you were looking for a bird that represented the spirit and traditions of Christmas, this elegant, compact and dark shearwater would hardly be the first thing that comes to mind. [...]

This week we decided to do a day trip about 40kms north of Broome in search of a Beach Stone-curlew, as they had been absent in Roebuck Bay for some reason this year. The road north starts off as bitumen/tar and then becomes sand/pindan and a four-wheel drive is recommended due to changing conditions. Here’s the [...]

Tubenose. No, it’s not part of a Shakespearean insult. Tubenoses are seabirds that belong to an order called Procellariiformes (from a Latin word for storm), and their English name refers to the tube-like structures that cover their nostrils, clearly visible on the Cory’s Shearwater below. Cory’s Shearwater (Calonectris diomedea) © David J. Ringer Procellariiformes contains [...]

“An island in the Adriatic Sea, called Diomedea, is home to a great number of shearwaters, which, it is said, neither harm the barbarians who live there nor come close to them. If, however, a Greek comes ashore, the shearwaters approach and stretch out their wings as if they were hands, welcoming the stranger.” Thus [...]

You have got to admire the Manx Shearwater. As a youngster of 10-weeks old, it is abandoned by its parents and left to fend for itself. Its first flight will take it from its burrow, usually on the west coast of the United Kingdom, to the coast of South America, an extraordinary journey for an unaccompanied minor. [...]

It sometimes feels like conservation news is nothing but doom and gloom, so sit back and enjoy a recent success story from New Zealand. The story involves one of the less well known of New Zealand’s species, the Hutton’s Shearwater. Hutton’s Shearwaters (Puffinus huttoni). Image Credit: Duncan Wright New Zealand has a lot of seabirds, [...]

Five days ago Daisy and I, staying busy doing our post-bar exam babymoon staycation, went on a whale watching trip on the Viking Star, a vessel based in Montauk Harbor at the eastern extremity of Long Island.  The trip, one of three weekly trips organized by CRESLI (Coastal Research and Education Society of Long Island), [...]

The BBC today reports about a Manx Shearwater, a pelagic bird, that is believed to be the oldest wild bird in the United Kingdom: Manxie, who is at least 51, has been coming back to Bardsey Island off the Gwynedd coast every year for half a century. Ornithologists have also discovered a veteran Razorbill which [...]