White-necked Petrel
Photo · Joseph Smit

BirdUp · Species

White-necked Petrel

Pterodroma cervicalis(Salvin, 1891)

Native
Order
PROCELLARIIFORMES
Commonness
Common
Best seen
Summer

01 · Identification

How to tell it apart

The white-necked petrel, also known as the white-naped petrel, is a species of seabird in the family Procellariidae. During the non-breeding season it occurs throughout a large part of the Pacific, but it is only known to breed on Macauley Island in New Zealand's Kermadec Islands and the Australian territory of Norfolk Island and Phillip Island. It formerly bred on Raoul Island, but has now been extirpated from this locality due to predation by rats and cats. Reports of breeding on Merelava, Vanuatu, are more likely to be the very similar Vanuatu petrel, P. occulta, which some consider to be a subspecies of the white-necked petrel. The IUCN rating as vulnerable is for the "combined" species.

Description · wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

02 · Where

Where to find it

Breeding range
Phillip I. (south of Norfolk Is., far east of Australia) and Macauley I. (Kermadec Is., north-east of North I., New Zealand)
Non-breeding range
To south-east Australia and north-west and north-central Pacific Ocean to south-east Japan and east-central Pacific

03 · When

When to look

Months this species is recorded across its Australian range.

  1. Jan
  2. Feb
  3. Mar
  4. Apr
  5. May
  6. Jun
  7. Jul
  8. Aug
  9. Sep
  10. Oct
  11. Nov
  12. Dec

05 · Behaviour

Habits and haunts

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