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Yelkouan Shearwater | Puffinus yelkouan
Yelkouanpijlstormvogel | Pardela mediterránea
The small shearwater of the Mediterranean, skimming low over the water in lines, often close inshore. In the region the eastern form breeds on the islets off Tunisia and Algeria and wanders along the coasts to Israel and Lebanon; the western form, the Balearic Shearwater, passes through the Strait of Gibraltar and along Morocco's Atlantic coast after breeding.
Voice
Silent at sea. At the colony at night a hoarse, snoring and wailing screech with an audible inhaling and exhaling rhythm, from rock crevices and coastal caves; in Tunisia heard on Zembra and Zembretta from February to June.
Recording: Mathis Baudrin — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
A medium-sized, stocky shearwater with a pot belly, rather broad wings and often slightly projecting feet. Dull dark grey-brown above, not black. The flight has more and faster beats and shorter glides than Manx Shearwater and usually stays low. Eastern birds (the breeders of Tunisia and Algeria) are fairly clean white below, with a rather broad, somewhat diffuse dark underwing margin, dark axillaries and usually pale undertail, the border between dark head and white throat below the eye being vague. Western birds (Balearic Shearwaters) are heavier and browner: belly and flanks dirty brownish-white with a brown wash on the breast sides and flanks, a grubby underwing with a broad dark margin, dark axillaries and brown undertail; dark individuals look almost uniformly brown. Bill thin and dark.
Confusion species
Manx Shearwater (Puffinus puffinus) is black above and bright white below, with a sharp border below the eye, white axillaries, white undertail, slimmer straight wings and longer, smoother glides. Scopoli's Shearwater (Calonectris diomedea) is much larger, brown-grey with a yellow bill and a lazy, sailing flight. Sooty Shearwater (Ardenna grisea) is larger, all dark and has a silvery underwing band; a dark Balearic Shearwater resembles it but lacks that contrasting band and is smaller. In the Red Sea and Arabian waters Persian Shearwater (Puffinus persicus) is similar, but has dark undertail, broader dark underwing margins and a longer bill.
Habitat
Coastal waters and open sea over the continental shelf, often close inshore and in bays and straits; flocks rest on the water and feed on shoals of small fish such as anchovies and sardines, sometimes behind fishing boats. Breeds in crevices, caves and burrows on rocky islets and cliffs, bare or under low maquis.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the habitats of North Africa and the Middle East.
Range and movements
Tunisia: breeds on the islands of Zembra and Zembretta in the Gulf of Tunis; birds feed in the Strait of Sicily and along the north and east coasts. Algeria: breeds in small numbers on rocky islets off the coast and can be seen offshore year-round. Libya: recorded offshore, breeding not proven. Egypt, Israel, Lebanon and Syria: non-breeding birds off the Mediterranean coast, mainly in winter and spring, regularly seen from the shore in Israel; at Eilat on the Red Sea a major rarity with only two records. Morocco: the western form (Balearic Shearwater) is a regular and often numerous passage migrant in the Strait of Gibraltar and off the Atlantic coast south to Agadir, mainly May to November, and is also seen off western Algeria; the eastern form is exceptional on the Atlantic coast, with a first confirmed record in Agadir bay in January 2013. Beyond the region the eastern form breeds from southern France, Sardinia, Italy and Malta through the Adriatic and Greece to Turkey, much of the population moving through the Bosphorus to the Black Sea after breeding; the western form breeds on the Balearic Islands and after breeding wanders to the Bay of Biscay, the Channel and the North Sea.
- 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
The ferries and headlands of the Strait of Gibraltar and around Tangier are the best places for Balearic Shearwaters from June to October, sometimes in flocks of hundreds. Eastern birds are best seen from the boat to Zembra or from Cap Bon in Tunisia, and in winter by seawatching in strong westerlies along the Israeli coast.
Conservation status
Vulnerable. The species suffers from bycatch in longline and gillnet fisheries, rats and cats on the breeding islands, disturbance and light from coastal development, and locally from hunting and egg collecting. The western form of the Balearics, with only a few thousand breeding pairs, is considered critically endangered and is declining fast. On Zembra and Zembretta, protected as a national park, rat eradication has been carried out to benefit the shearwaters.
Scientific name
Puffinus yelkouan | (Acerbi, 1827)
Acerbi described the species in 1827 as Procellaria Yelkouan; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. 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. yelkouan is the Turkish name for this shearwater, roughly 'wind chaser'. The specimen the first description was based on came from the Bosphorus, Turkey.