Townsend's Shearwater

Puffinus auricularis Townsend, CH, 1890

Townsend's Shearwater, Puffinus auricularis, is a seabird of the Pacific, breeding on montane Socorro and Clarion in the Revillagigedo Islands far west of central Mexico. Outside the breeding season it moves to coastal waters from southern Baja California to Oaxaca in north-west to south-west Mexico. It is a member of the Procellariidae, the petrel and shearwater family. The species was named for Charles Haskins Townsend, the American ornithologist and ichthyologist who described it in 1890.

Order

Procellariiformes

Family

Procellariidae — Petrels, Shearwaters, Diving Petrels

Breeding range

Pacific Ocean: montane Socorro and Clarion is. (Revillagigedo Is., far w of c Mexico)

Nonbreeding range

to coastal waters from s Baja California to Oaxaca (nw to sw Mexico)