Sooty Shearwater

Tītī is a large dark shearwater that gathers in immense feeding flocks around southern New Zealand. It is sooty brown with long narrow wings, a slender black bill and silver-grey flashes beneath the wings; short-tailed shearwater is smaller and duller beneath the wing.

Colonies extend from the Three Kings to the Chathams and subantarctic islands, with the largest around Rakiura/Stewart Island and the Snares; birds migrate to the North Pacific. Tītī dive to more than 60 m for fish, squid and krill and raise one chick in a burrow.

Sooty shearwater is At Risk — Declining (NZ Threat Classification). Introduced mammals, trawl and longline bycatch, gillnets and pollutants drive losses. Foveaux Strait, Rakiura and southern pelagic trips see the largest flocks, especially during breeding.