Everything about The Christmas Shearwater totally explained
The
Christmas Shearwater,
Puffinus nativitatis, is a medium sized
shearwater of the
tropical Central Pacific. It is a poorly known species due to its remote nesting habits, and it hasn't been extensively studied at sea either. It is one member of a very ancient lineage of the small
Puffinus species, the other being, as indicated by
mtDNA cytochrome b sequence data, the
Galápagos Shearwater which until recently was considered conspecific with
Audubon's Shearwater (Austin
et al., 2004).
Description
The Christmas Shearwater has all over dark brown
plumage, which is slightly paler on the underside of the bird and some small edging of white under the chin. Both sexes are alike, as are the young after
fledging. It is a slender bodied shearwater, about 36 cm long, with a wingspan of around 75 cm and weighs around 350 g. The species closely resembles the
Sooty Shearwater and
Short-tailed Shearwater, but has dark brown underwings, and is smaller. It has a short tail and brown-grey feet.
Range and Behaviour
The Christmas Shearwater nests on remote islands of the Central Pacific; the
Northwestern Hawaiian Islands,
Tuamotu, the
Marshall Islands,
Kiritimati (for which the species is named) and
Sala-y-Gómez. It has become locally
extinct on a number of islands, including
Wake Island. Outside of the breeding season it ranges across the Pacific, having been recorded off the coast of
Mexico and
Guatemala in the east, and
Bonin Islands in the west.
The Christmas Shearwater nests on sandy islands with good cover. It nests on the surface, underneath dense cover (such as the naupaka), or under rock outcroppings. It lays one white
egg, the timing of laying varying from island to island, on some islands breeding throughout the year. The egg is incubated for around 50 days. The time taken to
fledge varies depending on the
season, ranging from 60 to 100 days.
The Christmas Shearwater feeds at sea, predominantly on
squid, and
fish, mostly
goatfish and
flying fish. It is highly
pelagic and is dependent on predatory fish such as
tuna driving prey species to the surface.
Conservation
Although few specific studies have been conducted on the Christmas Shearwaters, petrels and shearwaters are threatened worldwide by
fishing, ingestion of
plastic waste, and habitat degradation. For example on
Laysan Island the
introduced rabbits degraded the scrub cover, leaving adults, chicks and eggs vulnerable to overheating, and introduced
black rats took eggs and chicks.
In 1985, the population on
Sala-y-Gómez, a nature
sanctuary, was estimated at 5,000.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Christmas Shearwater'.
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