© Graham Ekins
Subantarctic Little Shearwater Puffinus elegans
I have followed the most up to date classification and given this species status rather than as a race of Little Shearwater. To me it is very grey on the mantle (more so than suggested by texts such as Shirihai, 2007), fairly long billed and quite long-winged so very different from other Little Shearwater species I have seen eg. haurakiensis and kermadecensis off New Zealand). In fact it has the giz and flight of southern forms of Tropical Shearwater (bailloni) seen in the Western Pacific last year and to a lesser extent Macaronesian Shearwater (baroli) seen a couple of weeks later on this trip off Madeira. This species breeds in large numbers on Gough Island, the latest estimate suggests 5,000 pairs.
Photo taken on 11 Apr 2011