Leach's storm petrel or Leach's petrel (''Hydrobates leucorhous'') is a small

seabird Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adaptation, adapted to life within the marine ecosystem, marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent ...

of the tubenose order. It is named after the British zoologist

William Elford Leach William Elford Leach (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 apprenticesh ...

. The scientific name is derived from

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

. ''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'' 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 oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the Age of Discovery, it was known for se ...

and

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

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 is strictly

nocturnal Nocturnality is a ethology, behavior in some non-human animals characterized by being active during the night and sleeping during the day. The common adjective is "nocturnal", versus diurnality, diurnal meaning the opposite. Nocturnal creatur ...

at the breeding sites to avoid

predation Predation is a biological interaction in which one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common List of feeding behaviours, feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation ...

gull Gulls, or colloquially seagulls, are seabirds of the subfamily Larinae. They are most closely related to terns and skimmers, distantly related to auks, and even more distantly related to waders. Until the 21st century, most gulls were placed ...

s and skuas, and even avoids coming to land on clear, moonlit nights. The largest colony of Leach's storm petrels can be found on Baccalieu Island off eastern

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

, 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 Plumage () is a layer of feathers that covers a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage differ between species and subspecies and may vary with age classes. Within species, there can b ...

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 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 that drift in Hydrosphere, water (or atmosphere, air) but are unable to actively propel themselves against ocean current, currents (or wind). The individual organisms constituting plankton are ca ...

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, 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 the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...

and the

North Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the Age of Discovery, it was known for ...

* ''H. l. chapmani'' — von Berlepsch, 1906 — Coronados and San Benito Island (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 thunderstor ...

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 ( ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west, England to the England–Wales border, east, the Bristol Channel to the south, and the Celtic ...

and

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. 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 Rona () is an uninhabited Scottish island in the North Atlantic. It is often referred to as North Rona to distinguish it from the island of South Rona in the Inner Hebrides. It has an area of and a maximum elevation of . It is the most isolat ...

between 16 July and 12 August 1936, and on

Sula Sgeir Sula Sgeir is a small, uninhabited Scotland, Scottish islet in the North Atlantic, west of North Rona, Rona. One of the most remote islands of the British Isles, it lies approximately north of Isle of Lewis, Lewis and is best known for its ...

between 3 and 4 August 1939. The bird was first photographed at the nest in 1958, on Eilean Mor, one of the

Flannan Isles The Flannan Isles () or the Seven Hunters are a small island group in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, approximately west of the Isle of Lewis. They may take their name from Saint Flannan, the 7th century Irish preacher and abbot. The islan ...

off the west coast of the

Outer Hebrides The Outer Hebrides ( ) or Western Isles ( , or ), sometimes known as the Long Isle or Long Island (), is an Archipelago, island chain off the west coast of mainland Scotland. It is the longest archipelago in the British Isles. The islan ...

in Scotland, by

Jo Moran Joseph Moran (2 June 1930 – 11 July 2021) was an English ornithologist, wildlife photographer, mountaineer and Rock climber, climber. He was the first person to climb the cliffs of the Noup of Isle of Noss, Noss in Shetland, Scotland, the first ...

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 (see #Sequences, Sequences). Telomeres are a widespread genetic feature most commonly found in eukaryotes. In ...

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,

copepod Copepods (; meaning 'oar-feet') are a group of small crustaceans found in nearly every freshwater and saltwater habitat (ecology), habitat. Some species are planktonic (living in the water column), some are benthos, benthic (living on the sedimen ...

s, and a form of

amphipod Amphipoda () is an order of malacostracan crustaceans with no carapace and generally with laterally compressed bodies. Amphipods () range in size from and are mostly detritivores or scavengers. There are more than 10,700 amphipod species cur ...

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>">'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

, 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 Leach's storm petrel or Leach's petrel (''Hydrobates leucorhous'') is a small seabird of the tubenose order. It is named after the British zoologist William Elford Leach. The scientific name is derived from Ancient Greek. ''Hydrobates'' is from ...

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

Holarctic birds