Black storm petrel

The black storm petrel (Hydrobates melania) is a compact seabird, measuring 23 cm long with a wingspan of 46 to 51 cm. It nests in large colonies on islands near southern California, the Baja Peninsula, and the Gulf of California. These birds typically choose rock crevices for nesting, though they sometimes dig small burrows in soft earth or take over abandoned auklet burrows. To avoid predators like gulls, hawks, and owls, they visit their colonies only at night. Their walking is clumsy—just a short shuffle to the burrow. Each breeding season, the female lays a single white egg; if lost, it is rarely replaced. Both parents share incubation, which lasts about 50 days. After hatching, the chick is brooded for a few days until it can regulate its own temperature, then both parents forage to feed it. The chick fledges about 10 weeks later. For the rest of the year, the black storm petrel stays at sea, but closer to shore than most storm-petrels, so it is sometimes visible from the mainland. It migrates away from its breeding waters, unusually wintering in two areas: one in the California Current off Central California, and another farther south off Central America, reaching Colombia and Ecuador. This migration pattern is thought to help it avoid hurricanes near its breeding grounds. Its diet consists mainly of planktonic crustaceans, especially spiny lobster larvae, along with small fish and offal. It feeds by plunge-diving up to a meter below the surface, by picking food while swimming, or by snatching it in flight. At sea, it usually forages alone. The species is common, with several million pairs, and is not considered threatened, though feral cats and rats have caused losses on some breeding islands. Restoration projects have removed these predators from several nesting sites. It was once classified in the genus *Oceanodroma* before that genus was merged into *Hydrobates*.