Paíño Boreal

Identificación

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 and Wilson's storm petrel 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 planktonic food items from the ocean surface. Like most petrels, its walking ability is limited to a short shuffle to the burrow.

Taxonomía

Género: Hydrobates; familia: Hydrobatidae; orden: Procellariiformes.

Nombre científico

Hydrobates leucorhous

Autoridad

(Vieillot, 1818)

Orden

Procellariiformes

Familia

Hydrobatidae

Género

Hydrobates

Distribución y hábitat

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 storms 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 between north Wales and England. 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 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.

Área de cría

PO, AO : ne Atlantic from s Iceland, Faroe Is., c Norway, Ireland and Scotland; nw Atlantic from s Labrador to Massachusetts; nw Pacific from ne Russia and ne Japan to Alaska and n, c Baja California (nw Mexico); also off sw Africa

Área no reproductiva

to tropical Pacific Ocean mainly n of Tropic of Capricorn, and tropical Atlantic, reaching s Africa in temperate se Atlantic Ocean

Migración

Migrantes completos

Comportamiento

Patrón migratorio: Migrantes completos.

Conservación

Tendencia poblacional: en declive.

Tendencia poblacional

en declive