Barolo Shearwater
Puffinus baroli
Scarce and poorly known seabird breeding locally on islands of Azores, Madeira, and Canaries; very rarely seen at sea, usually as single birds, often not with other seabirds. Small, stiff-winged seabird that flies fast and low over the water (almost like an auk), gliding mainly in windy conditions. Note white-faced appearance, extensively white underparts contrasting with blackish upperparts. Trailing edge of upperwings often has a frosty sheen. Appreciably smaller and quicker on the wing than much commoner Manx Shearwater.
Identification
Features that distinguish the Barolo shearwater from the Manx shearwater and other North Atlantic Puffinus species include the pale face, silvery panel in the upperwings, shorter more rounded wings, and blue feet. As well as the pale face with the darkly contrasting eye.
Taxonomy
Barolo shearwater was formally described in 1857 by the French naturalist Charles Lucien Bonaparte under the binomial name Procellaria baroli. The specific epithet commemorates Carlo Tencredi Falletti, marquis of Barolo. This shearwater is now placed in the genus Puffinus that was introduced by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760 with the Manx shearwater (Puffinus puffinus) as the type species. The species in monotypic: no subspecies are recognised.<p>It was previously considered conspecific with the little shearwater (Puffinus assimilis) of the southern hemisphere. Mitochondrial DNA cytochrome b sequence analysis indicated that baroli and boydi were very close to the nominate subspecies of Audubon's shearwater. BirdLife International retain the forms baroli and boydi within little shearwater. The British Ornithologists' Union accepted P. baroli as a distinct species in 2005, as has Clements Checklist. The American Ornithologists' Union followed in 2013.
- Scientific name
- Puffinus baroli
- Authority
- (Bonaparte, 1857)
- Order
- Procellariiformes
- Family
- Procellariidae
- Genus
- Puffinus
Range and habitat
The Barolo shearwater breeds on the Azores, Desertas, Savage and Canary Islands. The largest colony, of 1400 pairs, occurs on the Selvagen Islands. The non-breeding range is the tropical and sub-tropic northeast Atlantic.
- Breeding range
- AO : islets off Graciosa and Santa Maria (c, s Azores); Porto Santo and Desertas groups (ne, se Madeira); Selvagem Grande (Salvage Is., n of Canary Is.); Tenerife and satellites, and satellites off Lanzarote (wc, e Canary Is.)
- Non-breeding range
- rare to coasts of sw Europe and nw Africa, and near shelf-slope break off New England (nw North Atlantic)
Behavior
The Barolo shearwater feeds in the upper 15m of the water column, which is similar to the closely related Audubon's shearwater Puffinus lherminieri of the western Atlantic and Caribbean Sea. Barolo shearwaters do not have a preferred time of day to forage or rest and they may hunt for food during either day or night, although they seem to be more ready to fly in the daylight hours. They feed mainly on fish and cephalopods, with Argonauta argo being the most common cephalopod taken in the Azores but also being part of a diverse selection of cephalopod prey, while the fish taken were almost exclusively Phycis spp.
Photos
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