Leach's Petrel

About the Leach's Petrel

Leach's storm petrel or Leach's petrel (Hydrobates leucorhous) is a small seabird of the tubenose order. It is named after the British zoologist William Elford Leach. The scientific name is derived from Ancient Greek. Hydrobates is from hydōr "water", and batēs "walker", and leucorhous is from leukos, "white" and orrhos, "rump". It was formerly treated in the genus Oceanodroma before that genus was merged into Hydrobates.

It breeds on inaccessible islands in the colder northern areas of the North Atlantic and North Pacific Oceans. The only breeding colony in the Southern Hemisphere is located on Dassen Island in South Africa. It nests in colonies close to the sea in well concealed areas such as rock crevices, shallow burrows, or even logs. It lays a single white egg, which often has a faint ring of purple spots at the large end. This storm petrel is strictly nocturnal at the breeding sites to avoid predation by gulls and skuas, and even avoids coming to land on clear, moonlit nights. The largest colony of Leach's storm petrels can be found on Baccalieu Island off eastern Canada, an ecological reserve with ~1.95 million pairs of the birds at last estimate in 2013. As with European storm petrel, birds breeding at the northern limit of the species' range on the Arctic Circle in Norway have to delay their breeding until autumn to avoid the 24-hour daylight of the high summer. Wikipedia →