The head of the Whitefaced Storm Petrel |
The nearest Whitefaced Storm Petrel breeding colonies to South Africa are at Tristan da Cunha and at Gough Island in the southern Atlantic Ocean. In the northern Atlantic, it breeds in large numbers on islands in the Selvagens Archipelago; these islands are off Morocco, just north of the better-known Canary Islands, where about 10 pairs of Whitefaced Storm Petrels have recently been discovered breeding. Farther south in the northern Atlantic, there is a large breeding population in the Cape Verde Islands, off the coast of Senegal. The bulk of the population breeds along the southeastern coast of Australia and around New Zealand.
In spite of the fact that the nearest colonies are quite close to South Africa, there are only three earlier records; all were made 70 km to 100 km off the Cape Peninsula, in May 1991, May 1993 and April 1995. It is believed that the Tristan da Cunha and Gough Island birds migrate mostly northwards into the tropical Atlantic Ocean, spreading west almost to South America and east almost to Angola. The birds reaching South Africa most likely do belong to these colonies. Outside the breeding season, this is a species of warm oceanic waters, so it is perhaps not surprising that it is so rare along the west coast of South Africa, with its cold Benguela Upwelling System.
This bird was found in a mistnet by Phil Whittington on Dyer Island, close to midnight on the night of 22-23 September 2001. It was a particularly blustery night, with a strong wind from the west. The mistnet, a single shelf wader net, was about 20 away from the shore. It was ringed and flew off as it was released.
The world population of the species is thought to be of the order of at least several million birds, with more than a million breeding in New Zealand alone. It is not considered threatened, but it is sensitive to any form of human disturbance at breeding colonies, and numbers of breeding pairs at some of these are declining.
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