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Mutton Bird (Sooty Shearwater)

Titi

Puffinus griseus

Mutton Bird (Titi) are a central part of the Stewart Island story, being critical to early Maori as a food source. From April to September the birds migrate across the Pacific (link) .

One of the great sights in New Zealand Birding is to be anchored close in to a bird island in the late dusk, with literally 10's of thousands of titi wheeling low overhead before returning to their nests.

Generally a bird of the open ocean they will come deep into Paterson Inlet chasing food and in bad weather.

Titi are very fast flyers. I have chased one in a fast boat, and it was easily clocking 60k/hour

Size 430 mm


Noisy. Titi are extremly vocal, especially at night. Colonies can be extremely dense, with burrows almost interlocking and the noise is amazing. How the birders sleep with it all is a mystery. We have been anchored perhaps 90 meters offshore and wakened by the din.
Evening arrival. As night falls the bird arrive over the islands in their thousands. Wheeling about and slowly decending until they locate their burrow area. Landing is more or less a semi controlled crash down through the forest canopy.
Flocking . Titi will form enormous flocks travelling in search of food. A flock as pictured may be a 100 metres wide and take several hours to pass, with birds only a handful of metres apart.
Feeding . When they find fish the flock literally bomb it. Hitting the water at speed and diving straight under. On surfacing they may often erupt out straight into flight, or may rest quietly on the surface
North America. I found this clip on the net, and it shows birds at the far end of their migratory journey, acting exactly as they do here around Stewart Island. Look at how close they are to moored boats and to people.