Levantine shearwater, Mediterranean shearwater
The yelkouan shearwater, Levantine shearwater or Mediterranean shearwater (Puffinus yelkouan ) is a medium-sized shearwater in the seabird family Procellariidae. It was formerly treated as a subspecies of the Manx shearwater (Puffinus puffinus ).
A piscivore is a carnivorous animal that eats primarily fish. Piscivorous is equivalent to the Greek-derived word ichthyophagous. Fish were the die...
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TerrestrialTerrestrial animals are animals that live predominantly or entirely on land (e.g., cats, ants, snails), as compared with aquatic animals, which liv...
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CongregatoryCongregatory animals tend to gather in large numbers in specific areas as breeding colonies, for feeding, or for resting.
Oviparous animals are female animals that lay their eggs, with little or no other embryonic development within the mother. This is the reproductive...
Precocial species are those in which the young are relatively mature and mobile from the moment of birth or hatching. Precocial species are normall...
A burrow is a hole or tunnel excavated into the ground by an animal to create a space suitable for habitation, temporary refuge, or as a byproduct ...
Soaring birds can maintain flight without wing flapping, using rising air currents. Many gliding birds are able to "lock" their extended wings by m...
Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, b...
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MigratingAnimal migration is the relatively long-distance movement of individual animals, usually on a seasonal basis. It is the most common form of migrati...
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starts withThe yelkouan shearwaters is 30–35 cm (12–14 in) in length and has a wingspan of 70–84 cm (28–33 in). It has the typically "shearing" flight of the genus, dipping from side to side on stiff wings with few wingbeats, the wingtips almost touching the water. This bird looks like a flying cross, with its wing held at right angles to the body, and it changes from very dark brown to white as the dark upperparts and paler undersides are alternately exposed as it travels low over the sea.
It is silent at sea, but at night the breeding colonies are alive with raucous cackling calls, higher pitched and more drawn out than the Manx shearwater's.
The yelkouan shearwater has a more contrasted appearance than the Balearic shearwater with which its winter range overlaps, since the latter species is brown above and dirty white below. It is very similar to the black-and-white Manx shearwater of the Atlantic, and stray birds out of their usual range are very difficult to identify with certainty.
Also, at least one mixed breeding colony of the yelkouan and the Balearic shearwaters exists on Menorca. A study of these birds recommended that a combination of morphological characteristics and DNA sequence data should be required at least for scientific purposes to assign individual birds to either species.
Yelkouan shearwaters breed on islands and coastal cliffs in the eastern and central Mediterranean. Most winter in that sea, but small numbers enter the Atlantic in late summer.
This species nests in burrows which are only visited at night to avoid predation by large gulls.
This is a gregarious species, which can be seen in large numbers from boats or headlands, especially in autumn. The yelkouan shearwater feeds on fish and molluscs. It follows fishing ships when offal is being thrown.
It is under some threat from the development of holiday resorts near its breeding sites, and also from animals such as rats and cats. On Le Levant Island, one of its major breeding locations, cats kill thousands of birds each year and it is estimated that this may lead to local extinction in several decades.
The study of the Menorcan colony concluded that at least in these westernmost birds, genetic variation was extremely low, suggesting that the yelkouan shearwater may have suffered a marked population decline historically and thus, while not threatened judging from its absolute numbers, it could be vulnerable to adverse effects of inbreeding.
It was formerly classified as a species of least concern by the IUCN. But new research has shown it to be rarer than it was believed. Consequently, it was uplisted to near threatened status in 2008 and vulnerable in 2012.
Social animals are those animals that interact highly with other animals, usually of their own species (conspecifics), to the point of having a rec...