The Manx shearwater is a small shearwater, with long straight slim wings, with black above and white below. Fish are caught by pursuit diving, using partially-folded wings for propulsion. The Sooty Shearwater is an entirely dark brown-grey bird, apart from a broad pale stripe down the centre of each underwing. Fluttering shearwaters eat small fish (e.g. Those Western Gulls, Northern Fulmars, Black-footed Albatrosses, and Sooty Shearwaters in that photo actually seem to enjoy those winds off the West Coast. Colony nester, the Sooty Shearwater nests in the far Southern Hemisphere. The upperparts are sooty brown whilst the underparts are slightly greyer with a silver-grey flash on the outer area of the underwings. What are Shearwater birthing rituals like? Birds typically do not return to their natal colonies until age four. Or, rather, they use the strong winds for dynamic soaring. Not necessarily. The seabirds far offshore in the above photo are strong fliers. The feet are dark grey, and barely project beyond the tail in flight. Its tail is short and rounded. The sooty shearwater is a seabird which is smaller than a herring gull. Shearwaters eat small fish, crustaceans, plankton, jellyfish, and squid. Beached Northern Fulmars, Great Shearwaters, Sooty Shearwaters and Cory’s Shearwaters are found on Sable Island, Nova Scotia, Canada regularly, and they can be used to assess plastic pollution. It is a large shearwater, with dark brown body and long brown wings. In calm weather the Sooty Shearwater flies low over the ocean with quick, stiff beats of New Diving-Petrel Species Lives … Flesh-footed shearwaters—large, sooty brown seabirds that nest on islands off the coasts of Australia and New Zealand—eat more plastic as a proportion of their body mass than any other marine animal. They may come close to shore where the water is deep. Plastic pollution is widespread in the marine environment, and plastic ingestion by seabirds is now widely reported for dozens of species. Its bill is dark and when seen close up, there is a pale band along the underneath of the wings. All shearwaters fish for their food. The diet of short-tailed shearwaters is primarily crustaceans. In flight it has a cuciform shape, with its feet trailing slightly behind its tail. Sooty shearwaters are the common dark seabird of coastal New Zealand, south of . from one year to the next, and so oldest birds would live for over 20 years. The sooty shearwater is a large, dark shearwater with long, narrow wings, long slender bill and narrow short tail.