Puffinus tenuirostris
Silhouette: Juan Carlos Jerí · PhyloPic
In 3 days <5% in a week ~10%
The short-tailed shearwater or slender-billed shearwater (Ardenna tenuirostris), also called yolla 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.
This shearwater appears to be related to the sooty and great shearwaters, which are also blunt-tailed, black-billed species, but its precise relationships are obscure (Austin, 1996; Austin et al., 2004). These are among the larger species of shearwater, which have been moved to a separate genus, Ardenna based on a phylogenetic analysis of mitochondrial DNA (Penhallurick & Wink, 2004).
Each parent feeds the single chick for 2–3 days and then leaves for up to three weeks in search of food. These foraging trips can cover a distance of 1,500 km (930 mi) and mean the chick may be left unattended for over a week. When the chicks fledge they weigh around 900 g (2 lb), and... Wikipedia →
Recording0:13
Australia · 2023
© Paul J. Morris · iNaturalist · CC BY-SA 4.0
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Freycinet National Park | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 2 | Wilsons Promontory National Park | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 3 | Great Otway National Park | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 4 | Maria Island National Park | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 5 | Kenai Fjords National Park | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 6 | Great Bear Rainforest | 🇨🇦 Canada | |
| 7 | Royal National Park | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 8 | Olympic National Park | 🇺🇸 United States |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Short-tailed Shearwater sighting in Great Bear Rainforest on a given day, based on 126 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 160th most-seen of the 239 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to under 5%, and over a week to about 10%, if each day is a fresh chance.
Any time of year
In every month with enough records, under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Short-tailed Shearwater in Great Bear Rainforest on a given day, so our monthly data shows no clear season.
Between 8 and 11 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Short-tailed Shearwater sightings with a recorded time, and about 8 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
6th of 8
Of the 8 parks where we can rate Short-tailed Shearwater sightings, Great Bear Rainforest ranks 6th at under 5%. The best odds are in Freycinet National Park (Australia, about 10%), Wilsons Promontory National Park (Australia, about 10%) and Great Otway National Park (Australia, under 5%).
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Short-tailed Shearwater is recorded against all the birds logged in Great Bear Rainforest (126 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
