Sooty Shearwater, Puffinus griseus

Sooty Shearwater
Sooty Shearwaters are the long-distance migration world champions, traveling up to 40,000 miles a year from their New Zealand winter breeding grounds, to southern Africa, and then to summering grounds off the coasts of California, Alaska, and Japan, and finally back to New Zealand. A large population of the birds summers in Monterey Bay, often forming huge feeding flocks visible from land, as shown further down this page.

Sooty Shearwater
A Sooty in its characteristic stiff-winged soaring position.

Sooty Shearwater

Sooty Shearwater
Like most seabirds, shearwaters need a good running start over the surface of the water in order to take flight.

Sooty Shearwater

Sooty Shearwater

Sooty Shearwaters
A feeding frenzy of Sooty Shearwaters in Monterey Bay, off Salinas State Beach south of Moss Landing, with the Santa Cruz Mountains in the background. During their summer stay in this area, flocks of more than 100,000 of these birds can converge on spots with plentiful fish.


Above, a flock of feeding Sooties near Pillar Point Harbor, Half Moon Bay, photographed from a boat returning from a pelagic trip. Below, the same flock in flight.
Sooty Shearwaters