Short-tailed Shearwater 'Ardenna tenuirostris' in the Northern Territory

Abstract

The Short-tailed Shearwater Ardenna tenuirostris is a trans-equatorial migrant seabird that breeds in the austral summer in southern Australia (principally in Tasmania and Victoria, with smaller numbers breeding in New South Wales, South Australia and southern Western Australia) (Marchant and Higgins 1990). Post-breeding, the species migrates to the north Pacific where non-breeding colonies stay during the months of May-September (Marchant and Higgins 1990). This is Australia's most abundant seabird, population estimate 13.1-16.5 million breeding pairs (Ross et al. 1996), and can be seen in considerable numbers off eastern and southern Australia during migration and the breeding season. Migrating birds are regularly recorded from Tasmania to south-eastern Queensland (Marchant and Higgins 1990), but do not generally occur in tropical northern Australian waters. We report the first confirmed record of Short-tailed Shearwater in the Northern Territory, and one of the few tropical Australian records of the species.