Tubenoses | Procellariiformes

Families in this order

• Albatrosses | Diomedeidae12 speciesAround twenty-two species in four genera. The family lives mainly in the southern oceans, with a few species in the North Pacific. The great albatrosses have the largest wingspan of any living bird, over three metres. The wings are long and narrow. A tendon in the shoulder joint holds them fully extended without muscular effort. This lets albatrosses glide for hours without flapping. They use the difference in wind speed between the air just above the waves and the air higher up, and can cover thousands of kilometres on a single foraging trip. Like all tubenoses they have tubular nostrils, which in albatrosses form two separate tubes on either side of the bill. Their keen sense of smell lets them find food over long distances. Salt glands above the eyes get rid of excess salt. They feed mainly on squid, fish, krill and carrion, taken at the surface and often at night. Pairs usually stay together for life. Before breeding, young birds spend years performing elaborate dances with bill-clapping, spread wings and loud calls with the bill pointed skyward. The first breeding attempt often comes only at five to fifteen years of age. They lay a single egg, on a mound of mud and plants or on a ledge, in colonies on remote sub-Antarctic islands. In the largest species one breeding cycle takes almost a year, so after a successful attempt they skip a year. Albatrosses can live for more than sixty years. This is one of the most threatened bird families in the world: most species are at risk, mainly because they drown in longline and trawl fisheries.
• Northern storm petrels | Hydrobatidae3 speciesJust as small, but with longer, narrower and more sharply pointed wings and short legs that do not reach past the tail, giving an erratic, bat-like flight in which beats and glides alternate. They take food while hovering or in passing rather than pattering steadily on the surface. At night, from the nest chamber and over the colony, they give churring and chattering series of notes; the birds themselves smell strongly musky, and the scent lingers about the nest.
• Southern storm petrels | Oceanitidae5 speciesThe smallest seabirds in the guide, with strikingly long, slender legs that project beyond the tail in flight and fairly short, rounded wings. They feed right at the surface, wings held up and feet pattering or hopping on the water, picking plankton and oily scraps from the top layer. They nest colonially in burrows and rock crevices on islands and come in only after dark, so nothing of them is to be seen there by day.
• Petrels and shearwaters | Procellariidae33 speciesMedium-sized to large seabirds with a stout hooked bill and long, narrow wings held stiff and straight in the glide: they shear low over the waves and use the difference in wind speed just above the water to make headway without a wingbeat. Food is snatched from the surface or chased underwater, several species diving tens of metres with half-folded wings. The legs are set far back, so on land they shuffle and push along on the breast; nesting is in self-dug burrows or rock crevices on islands. The chick is stuffed with oil-rich food until it outweighs its parents, and is then left to itself.