Leach's Storm-petrel
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Leach's storm petrel or Leach's petrel (''Hydrobates leucorhous'') is a small
seabird Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same enviro ...
of the tubenose order. It is named after the British zoologist
William Elford Leach William Elford Leach FRS (2 February 1791 – 25 August 1836) was an English zoologist and marine biologist. Life and work Elford Leach was born at Hoe Gate, Plymouth, the son of an attorney. At the age of twelve he began a medical appre ...
. The scientific name is derived from
Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...
. ''Hydrobates'' is from ''hydōr'' "water", and ''batēs'' "walker", and ''leucorhous'' is from ''leukos'', "white" and ''orrhos'', "rump". It was formerly defined in the genus ''
Oceanodroma Northern storm petrels are seabirds in the genus ''Hydrobates'' in the family Hydrobatidae, part of the order Procellariiformes. The family was once lumped with the similar austral storm petrels in the combined storm petrels, but have been split ...
'' before that genus was synonymized with '' Hydrobates''. It breeds on inaccessible islands in the colder northern areas of the
Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...
and
Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contin ...
s. It nests in colonies close to the sea in well concealed areas such as rock crevices, shallow burrows, or even logs. It lays a single white egg, which often has a faint ring of purple spots at the large end. This
storm petrel Storm-petrel may refer to one of two bird families, both in the order Procellariiformes, once treated as the same family. The two families are: * Northern storm petrels (''Hydrobatidae'') are found in the Northern Hemisphere, although some speci ...
is strictly nocturnal at the breeding sites to avoid
predation Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill th ...
by
gull Gulls, or colloquially seagulls, are seabirds of the family Laridae in the suborder Lari. They are most closely related to the terns and skimmers and only distantly related to auks, and even more distantly to waders. Until the 21st century ...
s and
skua The skuas are a group of predatory seabirds with seven species forming the genus ''Stercorarius'', the only genus in the family Stercorariidae. The three smaller skuas, the long-tailed skua, the Arctic skua, and the pomarine skua are called ...
s, and even avoids coming to land on clear, moonlit nights. The largest colony of Leach's storm petrels can be found on
Baccalieu Island Baccalieu Island or Bacalhoo Island () is a 5 km2 uninhabited island at the northern extremities of Conception Bay in Subdivision 1G, near the community of Red Head Cove, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. It is separated from the island ...
of eastern
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
, an ecological reserve with ~1.95 million pairs of the birds at last estimate in 2013.


Description

Leach's petrel, known in some rural areas (particularly in Newfoundland) as Mother Carey's chicks, Carey chicks, or Careys, is a small bird at 18–21 cm in length with a 43– to 48-cm wingspan. Like many other storm petrels, it has all-dark plumage and usually a white rump. However, dark-rumped individuals exist on the west coast of North America; they are very rare north of southern California, but the percentage increases suddenly on the United States-Mexico border, where 90-100% of breeding birds are dark-rumped. In Europe, it can be readily distinguished from the
European storm petrel The European storm petrel, British storm petrel, or just storm petrel (''Hydrobates pelagicus'') is a seabird in the northern storm petrel family, Hydrobatidae. The small, square-tailed bird is entirely black except for a broad, white rump and ...
and
Wilson's storm petrel Wilson's storm petrel (''Oceanites oceanicus''), also known as Wilson's petrel, is a small seabird of the austral storm petrel family Oceanitidae. It is one of the most abundant bird species in the world and has a circumpolar distribution mainly ...
by its larger size, forked tail, different rump pattern, and flight behavior. Identification in the Americas, however, proves more difficult. On the Atlantic Coast, separating this species from band-rumped storm petrels is difficult; identification involves characteristics such as the extent of white on the rump and flight pattern. Discerning this species from others is arguably hardest on the Pacific Coast, where the dark-rumped form can be confused with at least three other all-dark storm petrel species. Here, identification involves close attention to wingbeats and overall color. It has a fluttering flight, and patters on the water as it picks
plankton Plankton are the diverse collection of organisms found in water (or air) that are unable to propel themselves against a current (or wind). The individual organisms constituting plankton are called plankters. In the ocean, they provide a crucia ...
ic food items from the ocean surface. Like most petrels, its walking ability is limited to a short shuffle to the burrow.


Subspecies

* ''H. l. leucorhous'' — (
Vieillot Louis Pierre Vieillot (10 May 1748, Yvetot – 24 August 1830, Sotteville-lès-Rouen) was a French ornithologist. Vieillot is the author of the first scientific descriptions and Linnaean names of a number of birds, including species he collect ...
, 1818)
— coasts of the
North Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...
and the North Atlantic * ''H. l. chapmani'' — von Berlepsch, 1906Coronados and
San Benito Island The Islas San Benito lie in the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of the Mexican state of Baja California, 25 km west of Cedros Island. They are part of the Cedros Island ''delegación'', a subdivision of Ensenada (municipality), Baja Califo ...
(Mexico)


Distribution and habitat

It is strictly pelagic outside the breeding season, and this, together with its remote breeding sites, makes Leach's petrel a difficult bird to see from land. Only in
storm A storm is any disturbed state of the natural environment or the atmosphere of an astronomical body. It may be marked by significant disruptions to normal conditions such as strong wind, tornadoes, hail, thunder and lightning (a thunderstorm), ...
s might this species be pushed into headlands. Unlike the European storm petrel, it does not follow ships. In Europe, the best chance of seeing this species is in September in
Liverpool Bay Liverpool Bay is a bay of the Irish Sea between northeast Wales, Cheshire, Lancashire and Merseyside to the east of the Irish Sea. The bay is a classic example of a region of freshwater influence. Liverpool Bay has historically suffered from redu ...
between north
Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...
and
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
. Strong north-westerlies funnel migrating Leach's petrels into this bay. British ornithologists Robert Atkinson and John Ainslie observed the communities of Leach's petrel on the remote Scottish islands of North Rona between 16 July and 12 August 1936, and on
Sula Sgeir Sula Sgeir is a small, uninhabited Scottish island in the North Atlantic, west of Rona. One of the most remote islands of the British Isles, it lies approximately north of Lewis and is best known for its population of gannets. It has a narr ...
between 3 and 4 August 1939. The bird was first photographed at the nest in 1958, on Eilean Mor, one of the Flannan Isles off the west coast of the Outer Hebrides in Scotland, by Jo Moran.


Ecology

Lifespan for this bird is unusually long for a bird of such small size, with an average of 25 years and a maximum recorded lifespan of 38+ years (a bird banded between 1979 and 1982 recaptured in 2019 still healthy). In 2003, Haussmann ''et al.'' found that the bird's
telomere A telomere (; ) is a region of repetitive nucleotide sequences associated with specialized proteins at the ends of linear chromosomes. Although there are different architectures, telomeres, in a broad sense, are a widespread genetic feature mos ...
s lengthen with age, the only known example to date of such a phenomenon. However, this phenomenon likely also occurs in other members of the Procellariiformes, which all have a rather long lifespan compared to their size. Egg of Leach's storm petrel
(coll.
MHNT) They feed primarily on plankton, including
euphausiids Krill are small crustaceans of the order Euphausiacea, and are found in all the world's oceans. The name "krill" comes from the Norwegian word ', meaning "small fry of fish", which is also often attributed to species of fish. Krill are consid ...
, copepods, and a form of amphipod that is parasitic to jellyfish gonadal pouches. They also feed to a large extent on myctophids (lantern fish), which only occur at the surface at night in water over the continental slope. Individuals have been observed to feed at distances up to 1000 km from their breeding colony. A breeding individual stores energy-rich lipids in a sac anterior to its stomach, which is used to either sustain itself while incubating its single egg, to feed its chick, or as a defensive mechanism when caught by a predator, as do many other Procellariformes. Some evidence shows that parents feed their chicks different prey species from what they consume themselves. Parent birds also accidentally feed their chicks plastic debris, which they mistake for food items floating on the surface of the ocean. Chicks grow to a prefledging weight almost double that of when they actually fledge from the burrow in late September. During their migration, they travel to waters associated with the North Equatorial Current, or to waters associated with the Benguela Current.Pollet et al. (2019) Migration routes and stopover areas of Leach’s Storm Petrels ''Oceanodroma leucorhoa''. ''Marine Ornithology'' 47: 55–65 Fall storms can cause these young fledging individuals to wreck on the mainland.


References


External links


Leach’s Storm Petrel
- ''The Atlas of Southern African Birds''
Leach's_storm-petrel_[''Oceanodroma_leucorhoa''
/nowiki>.html" ;"title="'Oceanodroma leucorhoa''">Leach's storm-petrel [''Oceanodroma leucorhoa''
/nowiki>">'Oceanodroma leucorhoa''">Leach's storm-petrel [''Oceanodroma leucorhoa''
/nowiki>- photos, Christopher Taylor Nature Photography
Leach's storm-petrel ''Oceanodroma leucorhoa''
- USGS Patuxent Bird Identification InfoCenter

(for
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
, Faroe Islands and Marshall Islands)
Leach's Storm-Petrel ''Oceanodroma leucorhoa''
- photos, VIREO
Leach's Storm-Petrel (''Oceanodroma leucorhoa'')
- Avibase {{Taxonbar, from=Q211986 Leach's storm petrel Birds of the Atlantic Ocean Birds of the Pacific Ocean Birds of Iceland Birds of Europe Birds of Saint Pierre and Miquelon Native birds of Eastern Canada Native birds of Western Canada Subterranean nesting birds Leach's storm petrel Leach's storm petrel Holarctic birds