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White-Faced Storm Petrel | Pelagodroma marina
Bont stormvogeltje | Paíño Pechialbo
The White-Faced Storm Petrel is a grey-and-white storm petrel with a white face and a dark eye mask, which bounces over the water on long, dangling legs like a kangaroo. The population of Tristan da Cunha and Gough is the source of the rare birds that turn up in the waters off southern Africa.
Voice
Silent at sea. In the breeding colony at night a mournful, repeated oo-oo-oo from the burrows.
Recording: Rinse van der Vliet — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
About 20 cm. Crown and hindneck are grey-brown, the face white with a broad dark eye-stripe and a white supercilium. The back is grey-brown, the rump pale grey and the tail blackish. The underparts are white, with grey patches on the breast sides. The upperwing is dark with a paler bar across the coverts, the underwing largely dark with whitish coverts. The legs are long and project well beyond the tail; the webs are yellow. The sexes are alike. The flight is fluttering and swaying, with a characteristic side-to-side swing in which the bird pushes off the water with both feet together.
Confusion species
White-Bellied Storm Petrel (Fregetta grallaria) has a wholly blackish-brown head without a white face, a white rump and an underwing with a white centre. Grey-Backed Storm Petrel (Garrodia nereis) is smaller, with a black head and breast and a grey rump. At a distance the species may suggest a small tern or a Red Phalarope (Phalaropus fulicarius), but the fluttering, bouncing flight is unique.
Habitat
Open ocean, mainly subtropical waters over and beyond the shelf slope. Feeds on small crustaceans and fish larvae at the surface and rarely follows ships. Breeds in burrows on low, vegetated islands free of predators.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of southern Africa.
Range and movements
A rare visitor to the waters of the region, usually far offshore off the west coast of South Africa and off Namibia, exceptionally off the south and east coasts. In the Atlantic breeds on the Cape Verde Islands, the Selvagens, the Canary Islands, Tristan da Cunha and Gough, and elsewhere around Australia and New Zealand.
How and when to look
Only to be expected on trips well beyond the shelf edge. The bouncing over the water, with both feet together and wings spread, stands out even at long range; the white face with the dark mask confirms the identification. Report a sighting with photographs to the national rarities committee.
Conservation status
Not threatened globally; the population exceeds a million pairs. Introduced rats, mice and cats have wiped out colonies on several islands, and on Gough house mice are a threat. Lights on ships and coastal towns attract fledglings at night.
Scientific name
Pelagodroma marina | (Latham, 1790)
Latham described the species in 1790 as Procellaria marina; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Pelagodroma was introduced in 1853 by Reichenbach. Pelagodroma comes from the Greek pelagodromos, 'flying over the sea, sea-running', from pelagos 'sea' and -dromos 'runner', for the way the bird patters over the water. marina is Latin for 'of the sea'. The specimen the first description was based on came from off the mouth of the Río de la Plata.