Puffinus huttoni
Silhouette: Juan Carlos Jerí · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~10%
Hutton's shearwater (Puffinus huttoni; also known in Māori as kaikōura tītī) is a medium-sized ocean-going seabird in the family Procellariidae. Its range is Australian and New Zealand waters, but it breeds only in mainland New Zealand. Its conservation status is Endangered, because there are just two remaining breeding colonies, located in the Seaward Kaikōura Range. Six other shearwater colonies have been destroyed by introduced pigs. Hutton's shearwater is the only seabird in the world that is known to breed in alpine areas. Conservation measures for the bird include predator control at the breeding sites, establishing the Kaikōura Dark Sky Sanctuary, and community initiatives to rescue birds that crash-land at night on streets in Kaikōura. A protected breeding area has also been created on the Kaikōura Peninsula, including a pest-exclusion fence and man-made burrows, with the initial population established by translocating fledglings from the remaining breeding colonies.
The bird's name commemorates Frederick Hutton, a former curator of the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch, New Zealand. A medium-sized (350 g) seabird, with a 75 cm wingspan, it is brown with... Wikipedia →
Call0:11
New Zealand · 2014
© Paul Scofield · XC198036 · CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Recording0:20
New Zealand · 2025
© Rowan Hindmarsh-Walls · iNaturalist · CC BY-NC 4.0
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ningaloo Marine Park | 🇦🇺 Australia |
More parks will be added in future updates.
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sydney | 🇦🇺 Australia |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Hutton's Shearwater sighting in Ningaloo Marine Park on a given day, based on 11 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 98th most-seen of the 102 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 10%, if each day is a fresh chance.
March
In that month about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Hutton's Shearwater in Ningaloo Marine Park on a given day, against under 5% in April to February, the lowest months. That is one of Ningaloo Marine Park's wettest months, with about 45 mm of rain against almost none in October.
Between 9 am and noon
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Hutton's 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.
Only Ningaloo Marine Park, in our data
Ningaloo Marine Park is the only park on Wallace's Line with enough records to rate Hutton's Shearwater sightings: under 5% of wildlife watchers there report one on a given day.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Hutton's Shearwater is recorded against all the birds logged in Ningaloo Marine Park (11 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.
