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  Profile

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  In flight

Celestial Couriers

Manx Shearwater

Puffinus puffinus

• celestial
• 90 km/h
• Least Concern

Crosses the Atlantic twice a year. Navigates home to the same burrow across thousands of miles. No compass needed.

Population

~680,000–790,000 mature individuals (roughly 342,000–393,000 breeding pairs, mostly UK/Ireland)

Habitat

Entirely marine outside the breeding season; nests colonially in burrows on predator-free small islands and offshore islets, foraging over continental-shelf waters

Fun fact

A Manx Shearwater ringed as an adult on Copeland Island, Northern Ireland in July 1953 was retrapped there in July 2003, at least 55 years old — making it, at the time, the oldest known wild bird on Earth.

Range

Breeds across the North Atlantic — major colonies in the UK, Ireland, Iceland, Faroe Islands, France, Azores, Canary Islands and Madeira, plus small numbers in Massachusetts and Newfoundland; undertakes a transequatorial migration to winter off the coasts of Brazil and Argentina (South Atlantic)

Diet

Small shoaling fish (herring, sprat, sand eels), squid, crustaceans, and surface offal, caught by pursuit-diving and pursuit-plunging from the surface, alone or in small flocks

Size

0.34 m

Wingspan

0.82 m

Lifespan

55 years