Short-tailed Shearwater (5/17)

PROCELLARIIFORMES: Procellariidae

Ardenna tenuirostris  

Short-tailed Shearwaters are one of the most-comprehensively studied Australian birds, being the first to have been banded in significant numbers.

They arrive back from their northern migration in late September to prepare their nesting burrows and mate.

The nesting colony is deserted once more whilst the birds head out to sea to feed and build up body reserves.

The egg will develop inside the female at this time until it weighs 16% of her body mass, which in human terms would be a gigantic 10 kilograms.

This photograph of a pair of nesting burrows was taken during this period of absence.

[Bird Life, Ian Rowley, Collins: The Australian Naturalist Library, 1975 - contains a very interesting chapter on "The Tasmanian Mutton-bird" (Short-tailed Shearwater)].