Transactions
of the Azov-Black Sea Ornithological Station

Branta Cover Language of the article: Russian Cite: P, V. . Belik (2019). The nature of the stay of the Manx Shear-water on the Black and Azov seas. Branta: Transactions of the Azov-Black Sea Ornithological Station, 22, 78-93 Keywords: Manx Shearwater, Puffinus yelkouan, distribution, number, phenology of migrations, the Black Sea, the Sea of Azov Published online: 14.01.2020 Views: 1450 Branta copyright Branta license

Branta Issues > Issue №22 (2019)

Branta: Transactions of the Azov-Black Sea Ornithological Station, 78-93

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15407/branta2019.22.078

The nature of the stay of the Manx Shear-water on the Black and Azov seas

V. P. Belik

Southern Federal University, Rostov-on-Don, Russia

Manx Shearwater (Puffinus yelkouan) nests on the Mediterranean sea. Its breeding begins at the age of 5-6 years. The nesting period usually begins in March-April, but in January-February the birds concentrate at their colonies. In the colonies, they are exclusively nocturnal, and they often scream. The female and male hatch the clutch for 48-52 days, changing each other after 3-5 days. Nestlings begin to hatch from the beginning of May to the middle of June, and their feeding lasts about 60-68 nights. Nestlings begin to fly at the age of about 10 weeks. Egg waste is 22%, the mortality of nestlings is 5%, the mortality of young individuals up to 2 years reaches 73%, and up to 10% of adult nesting birds per year die.
Shearwaters in large numbers constantly fly to feed on the Black Sea. Their migrating flocks reach 20-30 thousands of individuals here, and hundreds of thousands of birds can gather in places of forage accumulations. In winter, flocks of young and immature shearwaters concentrate near the coast of the Caucasus and Crimea, where the European anchovy (Engraulis encrasicolus), which serves as the main food for birds, winters. In spring, shearwaters probably migrate to the North-Western shallow areas of the Black Sea, where the Black Sea anchovy (E. e. ponticus) spawns and feeds. Adult birds from the Aegean sea also regularly fly here. In summer, part of shearwaters feed in the same areas in the North-West of the Black Sea, and some move closer to the Kerch Strait, where the birds get schooling pelagic fish in the sea away from the shores of the Kerch and Taman peninsulas. In autumn, when the Azov anchovy (E. e. maeoticus) comes out of the Sea of Azov to winter in the Black Sea, almost all shearwaters gather against the mouth of the Kerch Strait. In the Black Sea during the winter, all shearwaters get no more than 5-10% of the wintering here anchovy population.
 

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