Bulwer's Petrel
Bulweria bulwerii
A small, slender petrel with long, narrow wings and a long tail. It is entirely dark brown except for diagonal buff-colored bars on the upper wings. The flight is usually low over the water, with fewer high arcs than other petrels. Nests on small islets off Kauai, Oahu, and Maui, and on most of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. Commonly seen offshore from boats and sometimes from shore. The call, heard only at breeding colonies, is a soft bark.
Identification
This very long-winged petrel is 25–29 cm (9.8–11.4 in) in length with a 78–90 cm (31–35 in) wingspan. It has mainly brown plumage and a long pointed tail. It has a buoyant twisting flight as it picks planktonic food items from the ocean surface.
Taxonomy
Bulwer's petrel was formally described in 1828 by the naturalists Jardine and Selby who coined the binomial name Procellaria bulwerii. The specific epithet was chosen to acknowledge the artist and naturalist James Bulwer who had collected the type specimen on the island of Madeira. Bulwer's petrel is now placed in the genus Bulweria that was introduced in 1843 by the French naturalist Charles Lucien Bonaparte. The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised.
- Scientific name
- Bulweria bulwerii
- Authority
- (Jardine & Selby, 1828)
- Order
- Procellariiformes
- Family
- Procellariidae
- Genus
- Bulweria
Range and habitat
The species has a wide distribution through tropical and subtropical regions of the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans, it is a year-round resident in Cabo Verde, China, French Guiana, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mauritania, Morocco, Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, Senegal and Taiwan, it breeds in the Macaronesian Islands and continental Portugal in the Atlantic; and from eastern China and the Bonin Islands, east to the Hawaiian Islands, the Marquesas Islands, the United States Minor Outlying Islands and Kiribati in the Pacific. It is marine and highly pelagic, usually found far from land except during the breeding season. This species has been sighted in Europe as a rare vagrant to Ireland, the Netherlands, France and Italy. It has also appeared as a vagrant in North America, with rare sightings far off the coast of both California and North Carolina and Australia.
- Breeding range
- TrO : Ilheu da Vila (Azores), Porto Santo and Desertas (Madeira group), Salvage (n of Canary Is.), Canary Is., Raso and Ilheu de Cima (n, s Cape Verde is.; Macaronesia, off w Africa), Round I. (ne of Mauritius, c Mascarenes, sw Indian Ocean), islands off s China coast, Ogasawara Is. (=Bonin, s of Japan), Northwestern and main Hawaiian is. and Johnson Atoll (sw of Hawaii), Kiribati and Marquesas Is. (e Polynesia)
- Non-breeding range
- to w and s in Atlantic, reaching w Africa; widely in tropical Indian Ocean s to Mascarenes and through Indonesian Arch. to New Guinea and n Australia, to s and ec tropical Pacific
- Migration
- Complete migrants
Behavior
Migration pattern: Complete migrants.
Conservation
Population trend: stable.
- Population trend
- stable
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
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