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Persian Shearwater | Puffinus persicus
Perzische pijlstormvogel | Pardela persa
The small brown-and-white shearwater of the Arabian Sea, the Arabian counterpart of Manx and Yelkouan Shearwaters. It breeds on the Hallaniyat Islands off Dhofar and on Socotra, and is seen in hundreds to thousands along the coast especially during the summer monsoon, when cold upwelling water makes the sea off Oman rich in food.
Voice
Silent at sea. At the colony at night a high, cackling and sobbing call, kee-kee-kerrr, from burrows and rock crevices.
Recording: Johannes Fischer — CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
Small and rather stocky, with short, broad wings and a relatively long tail and bill. Dark chocolate-brown above, warmer and browner than Manx Shearwater; white below, the brown of the head extending diffusely to below the eye and often a brown wash on the breast sides. The underwing has a white central panel framed by broad dark margins, with dark axillaries; the undertail coverts are dark, so the white belly ends sharply behind the legs. The bill is long and thin, dark with a pale base; the legs are pink. Flies low over the water with quick, stiff beats and short glides, and often swims and dives for food.
Confusion species
Wedge-tailed Shearwater (Ardenna pacifica) is much larger, with a long wedge-shaped tail and a loose, floating flight; birds in Arabian waters are almost all entirely dark. Flesh-footed Shearwater (Ardenna carneipes) is larger, all dark brown, with a pale pinkish bill with a dark tip. Jouanin's Petrel (Bulweria fallax) is all dark, with a long pointed tail and a swooping flight in high arcs. With rare birds in the Mediterranean or the northern Red Sea, Yelkouan Shearwater (Puffinus yelkouan) must be excluded: it has a cleaner underwing with a narrower dark margin and usually pale undertail. Manx Shearwater (Puffinus puffinus) is black above with white undertail.
Habitat
Warm coastal waters and open sea over the continental shelf, especially in areas of upwelling and strong currents off the Omani and Yemeni coasts; often within sight of headlands. Feeds in flocks, often with terns and Wedge-tailed Shearwaters, on small fish and squid, swimming and diving. Breeds in burrows and crevices on bare rocky islands.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the habitats of North Africa and the Middle East.
Range and movements
Oman: breeds on the Hallaniyat (Kuria Muria) Islands off the Dhofar coast; outside the breeding season common to abundant along the whole Arabian Sea coast from Dhofar to Ras al Hadd and in the Gulf of Oman, most numerous during the summer monsoon from June to September. Yemen: breeds on Socotra and is common in the Gulf of Aden and off the south coast, into the Bab el Mandeb and the southern Red Sea. United Arab Emirates: regular off the east coast in the Gulf of Oman, including off Fujairah, Kalba and Khor Fakkan; rare in the Persian Gulf itself. Saudi Arabia: scarce in the southern Red Sea around the Farasan Islands, rare further north. Israel: three records, two in the Mediterranean (winters of 1985 and 1989) and one juvenile at Eilat in October 2020, the first for the Israeli Red Sea. At most a few records are known from Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Egypt. Beyond the region it occurs in the Arabian Sea to Pakistan and western India and along the Somali coast; the southern form temptator, breeding on Mohéli (Comoros) and sometimes treated as a separate species, stays in the western Indian Ocean.
- 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
Seawatching from Ras Mirbat or the headlands near Salalah in Dhofar during the monsoon, July to September, often produces hundreds, together with Jouanin's Petrels and Wedge-tailed Shearwaters. In the Gulf of Oman a boat trip from Muscat, Dibba or Fujairah gives a good chance, especially in summer and autumn.
Conservation status
Not globally threatened, but the population is thought to be declining and its size is poorly known; most breeding sites are barely surveyed. Possible threats are rats and cats on the breeding islands, bycatch in coastal gillnets, oil pollution from the heavy shipping and disturbance of the islands.
Scientific name
Puffinus persicus | Hume, 1872
Hume described the species in 1872 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. 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. persicus is Latin for 'Persian'. The specimen the first description was based on came from at sea between Gwadar (Pakistan) and Muscat (Oman).