Leach's Storm Petrel

Hydrobates leucorhous (Vieillot, 1818)

Leach's Storm Petrel, Hydrobates leucorhous, is a northern storm petrel that breeds across the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, including the north-east Atlantic, north-west Atlantic and north-west Pacific, with an outlying breeding presence off south-west Africa. Outside the breeding season it ranges into tropical waters of both oceans, mainly north of the Tropic of Capricorn, and reaches southern Africa in the temperate south-east Atlantic. It nests on remote islands near the sea, using hidden sites such as crevices, shallow burrows and logs. The species lays a single white egg, often marked with a faint purple ring at the broad end.

Order

Procellariiformes

Family

Hydrobatidae — Northern Storm Petrels

Breeding range

Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean: ne Atlantic from s Iceland, Faroe Is., c Norway, Ireland and Scotland; nw Atlantic from s Labrador to Massachusetts; nw Pacific from ne Russia and ne Japan to Alaska and n, c Baja California (nw Mexico); also off sw Africa

Nonbreeding range

to tropical Pacific Ocean mainly n of Tropic of Capricorn, and tropical Atlantic, reaching s Africa in temperate se Atlantic Ocean