Endemic breeding birds of Juan Fernández archipelago, Chile.
This paper details the special avifauna of Juan Fernández archipelago, off Chile. We visited the archipelago from 3 to 15 March 2013, mainly to study the local gadfly petrels Pterodroma at sea, namely Juan Fernández Petrel P externa, Stejneger’s Petrel P longirostris and De Filippi’s Petrel P defilippiana. While on land, we focused on the endemic landbird taxa of the archipelago, including three full species. This expedition was undertaken by Hadoram Shirihai as part of the Tubenoses Project & Extreme Gadfly Petrel Expeditions for the forthcoming book Albatrosses, petrels and shearwaters of the world (Shirihai & Bretagnolle in prep). Special interests included documenting plumage variation, pelagic distribution and population numbers, and feeding techniques and species associations. In addition, we studied the petrels’ island-return strategy of a number of species that breed in ‘petrel-capital’ Masafuera.
Fregetta storm petrels off Juan Fernández archipelago, Chile, in March 2013 and February 2015
Little is known about the birdlife in and around the waters of Juan Fernández archipelago off Chile. During chumming sessions near Robinson Crusoe Island, also known as Masatierra, in March 2013 (see Shirihai et al 2015ab), we studied the endemic breeding subspecies of White-bellied Storm Petrel Fregetta grallaria segethi (hereafter segethi). Around Robinson Crusoe, breeding of this subspecies is only proven for nearby Santa Clara Island and perhaps other rocks (Murphy 1936, Brooke 2004). It also breeds in the Desventuradas Islands, Chile (Flores et al 2014).
A dark-morph White-bellied Storm Petrel Fregetta grallaria off Más Afuera (Alejandro Selkirk) Island, Juan Fernández archipelago, Chile?
Here we describe an intriguing dark Fregetta storm petrel observed in the Juan
Fernández archipelago, and discuss its possible origin. During 3–15 March 2013, we mounted a research expedition to the Juan Fernández archipelago (Shirihai et al. in press), especially designed to study Pterodroma petrels at sea, as part of the Tubenoses Project & Extreme Gadfly Petrel Expeditions (Shirihai & Bretagnolle in prep.). Special foci of our research trips are studies of plumage variation, the pelagic distribution, foraging techniques
and species associations, and in this case the birds’ return to the breeding island of Más Afuera (Alejandro Selkirk).
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