Flesh-footed shearwaters are always exciting birds to find, as they are one of the rarest of the seabirds to occur annually in Oregon. Single birds are sometimes found in flocks of other shearwaters.

They are very similar to sooty shearwaters but they are larger with pink or pale whitish feet and dark-tipped pale bills. In addition, their plumage is a deep chocolate-brown, lacking the grayness of the upperpart coloration of sooty shearwaters; and the underwing does not show the sooty's white coverts.

It is a rare late fall transient offshore at the western edge and slopes of the continental shelf and rare or irregular at other times of the year.

Hear the call of the flesh-footed shearwater

Photo by Ed Dunes, Flickr