Puffinus puffinus - Manx Shearwater
Feather characters. Barbules are extremely short (0.4-0.5 mm). Pigment is absent or stippled in parts of nodes and internodes. Borders between cells are visible, but hardly swollen and thus too small to qualify as nodes. These nodal structures (23-28 per mm) have about the same size along the entire length of the barbules, only slightly decreasing towards the tip. Villi are absent and internodes are straight. Prongs are unequally distributed along the entire length of barbules and are mostly folded to one side of the pennulum. They are extremely long, longest in the proximal and middle section and slightly decreasing towards the tip of the barbule. The longest prongs may be longer than their adjacent internode.
Field characters. Length 30-35 cm; wingspan 76-82 cm. Weight 453 g (Dunning, 1993). Smaller than Great and Cory's Shearwater with sharp contrast between uniformly black upperparts and white underparts. Bill slender. Usually in scattered groups, gliding on rigid wings, now tilting to one side and then to the other, thus displaying upper- and underside; occasionally varied by a few rapid wing beats.
Voice. Breeding adults utter a variety of crowing, cooing, and screaming noises; similar in sequence but of different pitch.
Distribution. Breeds locally in small or very large colonies. Map: see MapIt.
Habitat. Breeds on turfy, rock-girt islands, and turfy slopes of cliffs.
Food. Mainly small fish, but also small crustaceans, cephalopods, and offal floating on the surface. A day-time feeder, practising pursuit-plunging, pursuit-diving, and surface-seizing.