The Dark-bodied Shearwater 





Taken near Santa Barbara Photo by the Author 



A RAFT OF DARK-BODIED SHEARWATERS 



say 200 birds per minute, to a solid column which one must estimate at a 

 hundred or two hundred birds per second. Being once favorably situated 

 with a "marker" a half mile offshore and just inside the flight-line, I 

 estimated that between 100,000 and 200,000 birds passed in the course 

 of thirty-five minutes. This I judged on other grounds to be the complete 

 horde. Assuming the lesser number, or an average of 3000 birds per 

 minute, moving at a speed of sixty miles per hour (the questing flight is 

 really not so very rapid), we had here a flight circle thirty-five miles 

 in circumference. A circle twenty-five miles in diameter would assure a 

 quarter of a million birds. There is also good reason to suppose that 

 our "circle" is sometimes a very eccentric ellipse, with its major axis a 

 hundred miles or more in length, extending parallel to shore. This would 

 give us the possibility of a million birds. 



But to see them all at once! That, too, is easy if you know the 

 magic talisman. It is herring. The million Shearwaters are looking for 

 a school of ten million little fish; and when this populous kindergarten 

 is located — lucky for you if near shore — an electric thrill runs through 

 the circle. The original discoverers have plumped into the water; those 

 immediately ahead have wheeled about ; while those behind have speeded 

 up with an impulse which almost immediately affects the entire line. 

 The pace is furious, and the water is instantly black with settling birds. 

 The first comers have snatched their prey from the surface; their imme- 

 diate successors have had to dive to moderate depths, probably not over 

 three or four feet. The fish themselves have taken alarm and gone 

 below, but they will reappear in a minute or so at some distance, only to 

 be set upon in fury by the augmented company of beaks. 



After a successful catch digestion is the immediate order of the 

 day, and the Shearwaters settle upon the water in great shoals to accom- 

 plish this important feat. At such a time, having been notified by tele- 

 phone that strange black birds were thronging the harbor at Santa Barbara, 

 we seized our cameras and hurried down to Stearns Wharf, only to find 



2003 



