Short-tailed Shearwater

Ardenna tenuirostris (Temminck, 1836)

≈42 cmLength96 cmWingspan559 gWeight

It migrates back and forth across the Pacific between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.

Most records: United States, Australia, New Zealand

Least Concern

How to identify

Field marks

Tail tip relatively blunt
Bill black

Male, female and young

Newly fledged juveniles may be heavier than their parents.

Where and when it's recorded

Most records: United States, Australia, New Zealand

Short-tailed Shearwater has been recorded at 105 of the 8,276 birding hotspots we track, in 20 countries and regions.

Records by month Northern Hemisphere

Where it's recorded most

St. Paul IslandUnited States2,504 records
GambellUnited States2,060 records
Pt. Pinos – seawatch onlyUnited States1,785 records

More places

Eaglehawk Neck Pelagic TripAustralia1,739 records
Kaikoura – offshore – Albatross Encounter pelagicNew Zealand1,503 records
Southeast Farallon IslandUnited States761 records
Long Reef Aquatic ReserveAustralia162 records
Po ToiHong Kong (China)133 records
Poor Knights Shelf AreaNew Zealand132 records
Rocky Point Bird ObservatoryCanada84 records

Countries and regions with the most records

United States Australia New Zealand China Canada Japan Singapore Russia

eBird records via GBIF up to 2024-12-31. A record means someone listed it; more records partly mean more birders, not more birds.

About

The short-tailed shearwater or slender-billed shearwater (Ardenna tenuirostris), also called yula or moonbird, and commonly known as the muttonbird both in early Australia and in New Zealand, is the most abundant seabird species in Australian waters, and is one of the few Australian native birds in which the chicks are commercially harvested. It is a migratory species that breeds mainly on small islands in Bass Strait and Tasmania and migrates to the Northern Hemisphere for the boreal summer.

Excerpt from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0 · authors · Read more on Wikipedia

Questions

How big is the Short-tailed Shearwater?

The Short-tailed Shearwater is about ≈42 cm long, with a wingspan of 96 cm and weighs around 559 g.

Where does the Short-tailed Shearwater live?

Its breeding range: Pacific Ocean: islets off southern, southeastern Australia, Bass Strait and Tasmania (southeastern Australia). It is most often recorded in United States, Australia and New Zealand.