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Great-Winged Petrel | Pterodroma macroptera
Langvleugelstormvogel | Petrel Alas Grandes
The Great-Winged Petrel is an all-dark-brown Pterodroma with long, pointed wings and a short, stout bill that hunts in high, swooping arcs above the waves. It breeds in the depths of the austral winter on the Prince Edward Islands and is a regular sight on pelagic trips out of Cape Town.
Voice
Silent at sea. At the colonies at night a high, whistling kee-kee-kee and a soft, wailing moan, often in flight over the breeding slopes.
Recording: Stewart Ford — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
About 40 cm, with long, narrow and clearly angled wings, a rounded head and a short, heavy, all-black bill. The plumage is uniform blackish-brown, often with a slightly paler, grey-brown face around the bill base and on the throat. The underwing is wholly dark, sometimes with a faint paler sheen at the base of the primaries. The tail is fairly long and wedge-shaped; the legs are black. The sexes and ages are alike. It flies very fast and agilely, in high arcs on stiff, swept-back wings, and sometimes follows ships.
Confusion species
White-Chinned Petrel (Procellaria aequinoctialis) is larger and heavier, with a pale, horn-coloured bill and a slower flight. Sooty Shearwater (Ardenna grisea) has a long, slender bill, a silvery-white underwing and a low, shearing flight. Kerguelen Petrel (Aphrodroma brevirostris) is smaller and greyer, with a large head and a silvery sheen. The dark morph of Trindade Petrel (Pterodroma arminjoniana) has pale primary bases on the underwing and a slimmer bill.
Habitat
Deep open ocean in subtropical and subantarctic waters, especially along the edge of the continental shelf and over fronts. It feeds mainly on squid, as well as fish and crustaceans, largely taken from the surface at night. It breeds in burrows on dry, well-drained slopes, laying in the austral autumn and winter.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of southern Africa.
Range and movements
In the region a breeder on Marion and Prince Edward, where eggs are laid in winter and the young fledge in spring. Off the mainland a fairly common visitor to deep water off the Western and Southern Cape, most numerous in winter; scarcer off Namibia and east as far as KwaZulu-Natal. Beyond the region it breeds on Gough, Tristan da Cunha, the Crozet and Kerguelen islands and in south-western Australia, and forages across the southern Atlantic and Indian Oceans.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
There is a chance on almost every winter pelagic trip out of Cape Town, usually beyond the shelf edge and often in strong winds. It sometimes comes briefly to trawlers but rarely lingers; look for a blackish-brown petrel that shoots past in high arcs and has a strikingly short, stout bill. That separates it most quickly from White-Chinned Petrel.
Conservation status
Not threatened, with a large world population. On Marion the species suffered heavily from feral cats but has been recovering since their eradication. Introduced mice and rats on other breeding islands remain a threat to eggs and chicks.
Scientific name
Pterodroma macroptera | (Smith, 1840)
Smith described the species in 1840 as Procellaria macroptera; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Pterodroma was introduced in 1856 by Bonaparte. Pterodroma is Greek, from pteron 'wing' and dromos 'runner', after the fast, sweeping flight. macroptera comes from the Greek makros, 'long', and pteron, 'wing' — for the long, narrow wings. The specimen the first description was based on came from seas off the Cape, South Africa.