Short-tailed Shearwater Ardenna tenuirostris 短尾鸌
Category I. Scarce passage migrant through offshore waters in spring.
IDENTIFICATION
May 2018, Kenneth Lam.
40-45 cm. Small to medium-sized rather compact shearwater with relatively short and round-tipped wings and a shallow wedge-shaped tail beyond which the feet project clearly (at close range). However, despite the English name, it is not notably short-tailed. Underwing has pale areas on both inner and outer wings that are broadly similar in width. Flight generally has few sudden changes of track, and wing beats are rapid.
May 2018, Kenneth Lam.
Bill and neck relatively short. Plumage generally dark brown.
VOCALISATIONS
Vocal on breeding grounds but not away from there.
DISTRIBUTION & HABITAT PREFERENCE
All records have occurred in offshore marine waters to the south and east of HK.
OCCURRENCE
Since the first record in Mirs Bay on 16 May 2004 (Chow 2009), Short-tailed Shearwater has proven to be an uncommon passage migrant from the third week of April to the first week of June (Welch and Yu 2010). Extreme dates are 20 April 2009 and 3 June 2012. The highest count is 15 on 14 May 2007 and 15 May 2008, though in general seven or fewer are recorded. There is one winter record on 22 December 2020.
BEHAVIOUR, FORAGING & DIET
Although most birds are recorded in flight, may also be encountered on the sea surface.
RANGE & SYSTEMATICS
Monotypic. Breeds on islands off the southeast coast of Australia; in the non-breeding season population migrates north to the Bering Sea for the non-breeding season in the boreal summer (Carboneras et al. 2020). In China a migrant offshore (Liu and Chen 2020).
CONSERVATION STATUS
IUCN: Least Concern. Population trend decreasing.
Figure 1.
Carboneras, C., F. Jutglar, and G. M. Kirwan (2020). Short-tailed Shearwater (Ardenna tenuirostris), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.shtshe.01
Chow, G. K. L. (2009). Short-tailed Shearwater Puffinus tenuirostris in Mirs Bay: the first record for Hong Kong. Hong Kong Bird Report 2003-04: 188-190.
Welch, G. and Y. T. Yu (2010). Short-tailed Shearwater Puffinus tenuirostris: a regular spring passage migrant through Hong Kong. BirdingASIA 13: 80-81.
Liu, Y. and Y. H. Chen (eds) (2020). The CNG Field Guide to the Birds of China (in Chinese). Hunan Science and Technology Publication House, Changsha.
