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Sooty Shearwater | Ardenna grisea
Grauwe pijlstormvogel | Pardela sombría
A dark, fast shearwater with silvery underwings that breeds on southern ocean islands and makes a great loop through the oceans in the northern summer. In the region a scarce passage migrant off Morocco and, surprisingly, also in the Gulf of Oman.
Voice
Silent at sea. At the colony at night a moaning, cooing oo-ah-oo-ah.
Recording: David Boyle — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
Medium-sized and sturdy, with a rather small head, a slim black bill and long, narrow, pointed wings that appear set well back. All dark grey-brown except the underwing coverts, which are silvery white to grey and flash as a pale panel in sunlight; the tail is short and rounded, the feet barely if at all projecting beyond it. Flies fast and purposefully with bursts of powerful, stiff beats and short glides, arcing high in strong wind.
Confusion species
Wedge-tailed Shearwater (Ardenna pacifica) and Flesh-footed Shearwater (Ardenna carneipes) in Arabian waters are all dark, including the underwing, and have a pale pinkish bill and a slower flight. Balearic Shearwater (Puffinus mauretanicus), which winters along the Moroccan coast, is smaller, with a dirty white belly and faster wingbeats. Young skuas such as Pomarine Jaeger (Stercorarius pomarinus) have white primary flashes and a different flight.
Habitat
Open sea, also over the continental shelf; on migration sometimes close inshore, especially in onshore winds. In the Gulf of Oman almost always within a few kilometres of land. Breeds in burrows on islands in the southern oceans.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the habitats of North Africa and the Middle East.
Range and movements
In the region mainly an autumn passage migrant along Morocco’s Atlantic coast, from Tangier to Western Sahara, usually in small numbers and more often from boats than from land, for example off Agadir and Cap Rhir. Rare in the Strait of Gibraltar and the western Mediterranean, and barely recorded further east. In the Gulf of Oman off the east coast of the Emirates annual in very small numbers from April to June, mainly late April and May (up to twelve in a day); only a handful of records are known from Oman, mostly in April and May. Beyond the region it breeds around New Zealand, southern Australia, southern Chile, Tierra del Fuego and the Falklands, migrating in the southern winter to the northern Atlantic and Pacific.
- Resident
- Summer visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Winter visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Seawatching in strong westerlies on Morocco’s Atlantic coast in September and October, or an autumn pelagic from Agadir, offers the best chance. In the Emirates, boat trips from Fujairah or Dibba in late April and May are the best opportunity.
Conservation status
Near Threatened. The world population still numbers many millions, but has declined steeply through fisheries bycatch, traditional harvesting of chicks in New Zealand, rats and warming seas. In the region a scarce passage migrant.
Scientific name
Ardenna grisea | (Gmelin, 1789) (GBIF: Puffinus griseus)
Gmelin described the species in 1789 as Procellaria grisea; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Ardenna was introduced in 1853 by Reichenbach. Ardenna goes back to Artenna, the spelling the Italian naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi used for a seabird in 1603 and which Reichenbach cited when naming the genus. grisea is medieval Latin for 'grey'. The specimen the first description was based on came from New Zealand.