Cape petrel

Appearance

The Cape petrel is a unique looking petrel. It has a black head and neck, and a white belly, breast, and its underwing is white with a black border. Its back, and upperwings are black and white speckled, as is its tail which also has a band of black. When fully grown, their wings span 86 cm and they are 39 cm long.

Naming

The Cape petrel has two subspecies
⤷  ''D. capense capense'' breeds on circumpolar subantarctic islands.
⤷  ''D. capense australe'' breeds on New Zealands subantarctic islands.''Daption'' is derived from Ancient Greek for "little devourer", and the ''Cape'' name is because of where the type specimen was collected. Finally, ''pintado'' is Spanish for "painted" for its plumage. One of their other names, Cape pigeon, is from their habit of pecking at the water for food. The word ''petrel'' is derived from St. Peter and the story of his walking on water. This is in reference to the petrel's habit of appearing to run on the water to take off.

Status

The Cape petrel has an occurrence range of 146,000,000 km2 and a 2009 estimate places their population of adult birds at 2 million. Consequently, the IUCN rates them as least concern.

Habitat

During breeding season, Cape petrels feed around Antarctica's shelf and during the winter they range further north, as far as Angola and the Galapagos Islands. They breed on many islands of Antarctica and the subantarctic islands, some going as far as the Auckland Islands, the Chatham Islands, Campbell Island. Their main breeding grounds were on the Antarctic Peninsula, South Georgia, the Balleny Islands, the Kerguelen Islands, as well as islands in the Scotia Sea.

Reproduction

They are colonial birds, and nest on cliffs or level ground within a kilometre of the ocean. They tend to have smaller colonies than other petrels. Their nests are formed with pebbles and are placed under overhanging rock for protection, or in a crevice. In November they lay a single egg, which is incubated for 45 days by both sexes. Like most other fulmars, they will defend their nest by spitting stomach oil. Skuas in particular will prey on Cape petrel eggs and chicks. Upon hatching, the chick is brooded for ten days until it can thermoregulate, after which both parents assist in the feeding. The chicks fledge after 45 more days, around March.

Food

The Cape petrels' diet is 80% crustaceans, as well as fish and squid. Krill is their favourite crustacean, which they obtain by surface seizing as well as diving under water and filtering them out. They are also well known for following ships and eating edible waste and carcasses thrown overboard. They are aggressive while feeding and will spit their stomach oil at competitors, even their own species.