Appearance:

Dark-bellied, long-billed shearwater with small head and elongated body. Wings long, narrow and pointed, with pale patches/bands underneath framed in dark base colour of body. Flight fast and powerful. In strong winds hand held pointing slightly backwards. The pale underwing is clearly visible in good light, but the whole bird often seems completely dark. Only shearwater in the region with completely dark underparts, except from dark individuals of the much smaller, and short-winged, Balearic Shearwater. The latter also shows deeper belly and less deep chest. At long distance, and/or bad weather, Sooty Shearwater may be confused with Arctic Skua or even young Gannets. Differs from Gannets by size, shorter neck and no white rump patch. Told from Skuas by bursting series of stiff wing-beats with alternating glides.

Sound:

Mostly heard at breeding ground. A peculiar, rhythmic, coarse moaning, with a disyllabic attack, followed by a deeper, cooing "in-breath".

Song:

Distribution:

Wikipedia: map (se also Xeno-canto below)

Ecology:

Birdlife ecology

Links:

Observation.org Latest observations

Video IBC

Image search Flickr NB! May give other species

Sound search at Xeno-canto

CC

CC-photo:pablo_caceres_c, Licence,Link.

CC-photo:Jon. D. Anderson, Licence,Link.

Sounds:Creative Commons,www.xeno-canto.org,sjonnoh,http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

Appearance:

Can only be confused with other phalaropes, due to swimming behaviour. Juveniles and winter plumage birds can be mistaken for Red Phalarope, but bill is much more needle-like and neck and body more slender. Juvenile birds with prominent buff stripes on back, and first winter birds with dark fore-crown (see Red Phalarope). Adult winter with white stripes on back, as opposed to Red Phalarope's uniformly grey back.

Sound:

Short and sharp "teck", sometimes repeated to form trilling series. Also a mewing, nasal "veeoo".

Contact call:

Distribution:

Wikipedia: map (se also Xeno-canto below)

Ecology:

Birdlife ecology

Links:

Observation.org Latest observations

Video IBC

Image search Flickr NB! May give other species

Sound search at Xeno-canto

Featherbase

CC

Sounds:Recorded by Patrik Åberg,http://www.xeno-canto.org ,CC license