Last fall I brought you the ‘Great Shearwater’ which I spotted for the first time last summer off the coast of Newfoundland. Well, earlier this year off the coast of Tenerife, I was fortunate to be able to spot my first ever sighting of another member of the shearwater family, this time the ‘Cory’s Shearwater’ (Calonectris diomedea). These large, traditionally pelagic feeding seabirds gather around the cliffs and waters of the Canary Islands, SW Portugal and the Azores early each year for nesting. Once the young fledge, these large winged birds with a wingspan of around 120cm travel south to the shores of South America, before restarting their journey north to their breeding grounds via coastal North America and then crossing back over the Atlantic – some of these birds have been known to travel more than 40,000km in a year!
