This seabird, the most abundant in Oregon, has recently suffered severe declines or significant population shift in the eastern North Pacific.

Similar in shape to thin, long-winged gulls, sooty shearwaters are dark sooty gray with limited amounts of white on the underwing coverts.

They glide on wind currents along wave troughs on stiff wings. Gregarious, they form huge loose flocks in migration, often passing for hours within site of land-based observers.

In Oregon, it is an abundant summer visitor and transient offshore on the inner shelf and is most numerous three to six miles offshore.

Hear the call of the sooty shearwater

Photo by ©Greg Gilson