Fea's Petrel 121 



The soft-plumaged petrel complex remains one of the least known 

 and seriously threatened seabird taxa in the Atlantic Ocean. There is 

 cause for serious concern over the continued survival of the North 

 Atlantic species. The total population of Freira petrels (P. madeira) 

 may consist of no more than 50 pairs nesting at the higher elevations 

 of Madeira, making it Europe's rarest bird (Buckle and Zino 1989). 

 During the late 1980s, several failed breeding attempts were recorded, 

 possibly because of interference by rats and/or predation by feral cats 

 (A. Zino personal communication). The population of Fea's petrels 

 (P. feae), which is unlikely to total more than several hundred pairs, 

 is subject to human predation arising from medicinal use of the bird's 

 body fat (Cramp and Simmons 1977, Collar and Stuart 1985). Breeding 

 in dispersed colonies in burrows, earth screes, and rocky outcrops, 

 this ground-nesting species is also vulnerable to predation by cats, 

 rats, and other feral mammals; deforestation, vegetation destruction, 

 and soil erosion by goats; and possible competition with rabbits for 

 nesting burrows (Collar and Stuart 1985:42). 



As in several other eastern and southern Atlantic procellariiforms 

 (for examples, see Lee 1979, 1984; Haney and Wainright 1985), disper- 

 sal into the western Atlantic Ocean by petrels of the soft-plumaged 

 complex could prove to be a regular occurrence overlooked owing to 

 the species' rarity rather than casual vagrancy. Fea's petrels have 

 been observed accompanying groups of Cory's shearwaters in the eastern 

 Atlantic at other seasons (Lambert 1980). The mixed-species flock in 

 which we encountered the Fea's petrel was dominated by Cory's shear- 

 waters, a far more common species that occupies a sympatric breeding 

 range with Fea's petrel in the eastern North Atlantic. If such interspeci- 

 fic associations are typical, then the petrel we observed may have 

 followed, or have been locally attracted to, large flocks of trans- 

 Atlantic migrant shearwaters during its wanderings to the offshore 

 waters of the southeastern United States. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS— We thank M. Lecroy of the American 

 Museum of Natural History for the loan of specimens of P. feae, 

 and E. McGhee of the University of Georgia Museum of Natural 

 History for curatorial assistance. J. Warham, P. Meeth, B. Zonfrillo, 

 S. M. Lister, and F. and P. A. Zino supplied additional information, 

 including reference photographs of soft-plumaged and related petrels 

 for comparison. We also thank D. H. White, F. Zino, and three 

 anonymous reviewers for valuable comments on earlier drafts. The 

 University of Georgia Marine Extension Service and crew of the R/V 

 "Bulldog" extended logistic support during our offshore surveys. Addi- 

 tional support was received from The Pew Charitable Trusts under 



