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White-Headed Petrel | Pterodroma lessonii
Witkopstormvogel | Fardela de Frente Blanca
The White-Headed Petrel is a large, powerful Pterodroma with a white head, a dark eye mask and a dark underwing. It is a bird of cold subantarctic waters, seen in southern Africa mainly around the Prince Edward Islands and a great rarity off the mainland.
Voice
Silent at sea. At the colonies at night a high, whistling tew-tew-tew and wailing, moaning calls from the burrows.
Recording: Kevin Guille — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
About 43 cm, bulky, with long wings and a thick black bill. Head, neck and underparts are white, with a striking black patch around and in front of the eye; the crown and hindneck are washed pale grey. Back and upperwing are grey with darker primaries and a faint dark M-pattern, the rump and tail pale grey to white. The underwing is dark grey to blackish and contrasts strongly with the white body. The legs are flesh-coloured with dark toes. The sexes and ages are alike. It flies in high, fast arcs on stiff wings, especially in strong winds.
Confusion species
Soft-Plumaged Petrel (Pterodroma mollis) is smaller and darker above, with a grey head and breast band and a dark tail. Atlantic Petrel (Pterodroma incerta) has a wholly brown head and breast. Southern Fulmar (Fulmarus glacialoides) also has a white head, but has a pink bill, a white underwing and white panels in the primaries.
Habitat
Cold subantarctic and subtropical waters between about 30° and 65° south, especially over deep water and along fronts. It feeds mainly on squid and fish, mostly at night. It breeds in burrows in peaty soil among tussock grass on subantarctic islands.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of southern Africa.
Range and movements
In the region a regular foraging visitor at sea around Marion and Prince Edward, but not a breeder there. Off the mainland a rare vagrant with scattered records south-west of the Cape and closer to the South African coast, mainly in winter. It breeds on the Crozet and Kerguelen islands, Macquarie and the Auckland and Antipodes islands, and wanders around the whole Southern Ocean.
How and when to look
Off the mainland there is no reliable site; the chance is greatest on winter pelagic trips well beyond the shelf edge out of Cape Town. On the voyage to Marion the species is seen regularly in open ocean. A white head with a black eye mask above a dark underwing is diagnostic.
Conservation status
Not threatened, with a large world population. On several breeding islands cats, rats and rabbits have been a threat; where they have been eradicated, as on Macquarie, the species is recovering. Bycatch plays hardly any role.
Scientific name
Pterodroma lessonii | (Garnot, 1826)
Garnot described the species in 1826 as Procellaria Lessonii; 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. lessonii honours the French surgeon and naturalist René Primevère Lesson (1794–1849), who sailed on voyages round the world as ship's surgeon. The specimen the first description was based on came from South Pacific Ocean, west of Cape Horn.