Manx Shearwaters On The Great Lakes

50Manx Shearwaterson the Great LakesRobert Curry and Bruce Di LabioThere are now four records of ManxShearwater (Puffinus puffinus) from thelower Great Lakes or adjacent waterbodies and land areas. This paper willdiscuss in detail observations of thebird at Hamilton in 2006. It will alsosummarize what is known about theother three records and speculate abouttheir origins.Armada, Michigan,19 August 2000The first Manx Shearwater for theGreat Lakes was found in emaciatedcondition on a lawn. Armada is inMacomb County in the southeasternpart of Michigan, due north of Windsor, Ontario, and southwest of Sarnia(Brewer 2003, Chartier 2000).Apart from the fact that this birdmost probably passed through Ontario,the most intriguing fact is that it wasbanded as a nestling on CopelandONTARIO BIRDS APRIL 2008Island, County Down, Northern Ireland, on 7 September 1991. Whenfound it was nine years old (Brewer2003).Ottawa, Ontario,26 August 2001On 26 August 2001, while walkingalong the Shirley’s Bay dyke west ofOttawa along the Ottawa River, BruceSquirrel noticed a black and white birdfloating in the water (Di Labio 2001).Noting it looked unusual for a gull, heretrieved the bird. It was in excellentcondition and appeared to have justrecently expired. The specimen was putin a freezer and Di Labio was contacted, through Peter Dunn of Ottawa,about this unusual specimen. On 9September 2001, Di Labio picked upthe specimen and later took it to theCanadian Museum of Nature where heand Michel Gosselin confirmed the

51and Simmons, 1977). Sex was a female;ovaries measured 10 mm X 4 mm. Thefeathers were in relatively good shapeand there was no unusual wear. Therecord was accepted by the OntarioBird Record Committee as the firstrecord for Ontario (Roy 2002)Hamilton, Ontario,(Van Wagners Beach)31 August – 1 September 2006Figure 1: Manx Shearwater found dead at ShirleysBay, Ottawa, 26 August 2001.Photo: Bruce DiLabioidentification. Photographs were taken(Figure 1) and Di Labio prepared thebird as a study skin (specimen numberCMNAV 77920). The shearwater wasemaciated, weighing only 248.6 grams,and its stomach was empty. Averageweight of healthy female individualsranges from 375 to 447 grams (CrampLake watchers at the western end ofLake Ontario have established thatamong the best periods to watch forCanadian Arctic birds on passage totheir wintering grounds on southernoceans are at the end of August and thefirst 10 days of September. Conditionsat the end of August 2006 were particularly ideal when a nine-day period ofstrong northeast winds caused birds onthe lake to drift to the western end.Barry Cherriere and others began adaily vigil on 24 August (Cherriere2007).On 31 August, the seventh day ofsuch favourable winds, observers talliednumbers of Parasitic Jaegers (Stercorarius parasiticus). At 1400h, Cherrierewas stunned to observe the characteristic stiff-winged roller coaster flight ofan apparent shearwater as it flewthrough the field of view of his spottingscope from left to right; five others werepresent and observed the bird at thistime. Using Harrison (1983) they identified the bird as a Manx Shearwater.They observed the bird flying by out inVOLUME 26 NUMBER 1

52Figure 2: Manx Shearwater at Van WagnersBeach, Hamilton, 31 August 2006, showingblack upperparts. Photo: Barry S. CherriereFigure 3: Manx Shearwater at Van WagnersBeach, 31 August 2006. Note all whiteundertail coverts and very black upperparts.Photo: Barry S. CherriereONTARIO BIRDS APRIL 2008

53Figure 4: Manx Shearwater at Van Wagners Beach,31 August 2006, commencing descent from high,arching glide. Photo: Barry S. Cherrierethe lake several more times over the nexthour or so. However, as birders began togather, the bird was not being seen. Fortunately, at 1830h, the gathered groupwas treated with two “fly-bys”. Theshearwater flew past from east to west atan estimated distance of 200 m then,presumably finding itself cut off by theend of the lake, returned from west toeast at a distance of approximately400 m. On this second pass Cherriereobtained photographs (Figures 2 – 4).The following morning, 1 September, a much larger group of happy birders managed to see the Manx Shearwater. Unfortunately, after about 0900hthe bird disappeared, although in thelate afternoon a few watchers managedto observe it farther out in the lake. Thiswas the last observation of the ManxShearwater at Hamilton.Only a few similar shearwaters aresmall, dark above and white below.Three that occur in the northwesternNorth Atlantic are the Audubon’s (P.lherminieri), Little (P. assimilis) andManx Shearwaters (Dunn and Alderfer2006, Post 1967).The Manx Shearwater is by far the most likely of these threeto be seen inland. Audubon’s is a warmwater species and is a postbreedinginhabitant of the Gulf Stream, occurring rarely as far north as CanadianAtlantic waters (Godfrey 1986). Thereis one Ontario record of Audubon’sShearwater — of a bird found dead atAlmonte, Lanark, on 8 September 1975(Godfrey 1976, 1986). This bird’sVOLUME 26 NUMBER 1

54arrival so far inland probably resultedfrom Hurricane Caroline, a category 3storm, when it made landfall in westernFlorida, and which dissipated into atropical depression on 1 September ineastern Kentucky (Wormington 2008).The Little Shearwater breeds on islandsin the eastern Atlantic and is a vagrantto the western Atlantic. The ManxShearwater, on the other hand, haschanged drastically in status on this sideof the Atlantic, and is discussed later.Observations and photographs ofthe Hamilton bird illustrate the diagnostic features of Manx Shearwater andclearly eliminate Audubon’s and LittleShearwaters. Manx is noticeably longerwinged than the other two, and is theonly one that habitually soars highabove the water, interspersed with longglides in a rolling fashion. The longwinged shape, pointed primaries andsoaring behavior, were carefully notedby observers at Van Wagners Beach, andare apparent in the photographs. It wasuniformly black on the entire upperparts. It was gleaming white on theunder-parts, including white wing linings, and had white undertail-coverts.The leading and trailing edges of thewings were black, as were the undersides of the outer primaries. It was difficult under the conditions of observation to note the exact pattern of thehead, except to note that the crown wasdark and this black extended down tothe eye and onto the sides of the neck.Little Shearwater is a small, short-winged species that flies close to the waterONTARIO BIRDS APRIL 2008with a more laboured flight. Audubon’sShearwater is proportionately shorterand rounder winged, has dark brownupperparts and dusky undertail coverts,and does not normally tower in flight.Derby Hill, New York,23 October 2006On this date, Bill Purcell and DaveWheeler watched a Manx Shearwaterflying west into the wind off Derby Hillat the southeast end of Lake Ontario(Iron and Pittaway 2006, Veit and Paxton 2007). They observed the salientfeatures and their description appears toclearly eliminate Audubon’s Shearwater.They submitted a report to the NewYork State Avian Records Committeebut it had not been reviewed at the timeof writing this paper (Jean Skelly, pers.comm.).The only other inland record ofManx Shearwater in North Americawas one observed, on 30 May 2004, bya birding tour group at NinepipeNational Wildlife Refuge Reservoir inwestern Montana (Holt et al. 2007).Unlike the Great Lakes birds, thisshearwater likely originated in theNorth Pacific, where since the firstreport in 1975, The Manx Shearwaterhas increased dramatically up to thepresent time; now about 15 are foundannually (Mlodinow 2004). Also,unlike the Great Lakes birds, the ManxShearwater in Montana must have crossed a considerable extent of land,including mountains, to arrive at theobservation point.

55Status and Origin of Great LakesManx ShearwatersThe majority of Manx Shearwatersbreed in the eastern Atlantic, mostly inthe United Kingdom and Ireland, butalso on islands off the coast of Europeand Africa (Lee 1999). The world population is estimated to be 340,000 –410,000 pairs (Mitchell et al. 2004).The bulk of the population undertakesa long and rapid trans-equatorial migration to the South Atlantic and overwinters off the east coast of SouthAmerica, although a few remain inNorthern Atlantic waters (Lee 1999).In the western Atlantic, there were afew reports and specimens of ManxShearwater beginning with 1833, whenAudubon claimed to have obtained aspecimen to the west of Newfoundland(Post 1967). The species is known tohave bred three times in Bermuda, butnot after 1905 (Lee 1999). Beginningin the 1950s Manx Shearwater wasreported regularly from North American waters. The first North Americannest was found on Penikese Island,Massachusetts, in 1973 (Bierregaard etal. 1975). Manx Shearwaters were firstfound nesting on Middle Lawn Island,off the Burin Peninsula in southernNewfoundland, in 1977 (Storey andLien 1985). They continue to nestthere. Numbers in waters off the eastcoast of Canada and the United Stateshave increased dramatically since the1970s (Mlodinow 2004).Manx Shearwater has a preferencefor the shallower waters of the continental shelf and now is the commonestshearwater found in inshore waters ofNova Scotia (Lee and Haney 1996). Forexample, Di Labio et al. (unpubl. data)counted more than 100 Manx Shearwaters, on 31 August 2001, in the Bay ofFundy off Grand Manan Island. It is byfar the most common shearwater in theSt. Lawrence estuary with at least 25records west of Matane, Quebec (M.Gosselin pers. comm.). There are atleast two records as far upriver as Quebec City (31 July 1984, 20 August2006), and one was reported near Sherbrooke, on 20 August 1993 (M. Gosselin, pers. comm.).The large numbers of Manx Shearwaters off Canada’s east coast are not allbreeding in Canada. Some nonbreedingadults and juveniles from the Europeancolonies spend the summer in NorthAmerican waters and others may visitnorthwest Atlantic feeding groundsbefore migrating to the South Atlantic.The Michigan bird, although originallybanded in Northern Ireland, may havealready been over the Canadian continental shelf before it moved inlandNote the tight grouping of three ofthese records; they occurred in a spaceof 13 days, 19 August – 31 August, andalso all three in the span of seven yearsbetween 2000 and 2006. Nonbreedingadult Manx Shearwaters and juvenilesdepart their North Atlantic breedinggrounds in July – August, followed byVOLUME 26 NUMBER 1