Team solves Swinhoe's storm petrel mystery

Published in the January issue of Avian Research, an open access, peer-reviewed journal that publishes articles covering all aspects of ornithology, the study, titled "Diverse foraging strategies of breeding Swinhoe's storm petrel in the productive marginal sea of the Northwest Pacific", sheds light on the bird's intricate foraging behaviors.

The research has revealed that during their breeding season, Swinhoe's storm petrels fly as far as 348 kilometers from their colonies out to sea to forage for food in the open sea, said Liu, the paper's corresponding coauthor.

Members of the team and the Qingdao Bird Watching Society conducted their research on Dagong Island, which is near Qingdao, Shandong province, in the Yellow Sea.

They fixed small satellite tracking devices on Swinhoe's storm petrels breeding on the island between May and late October and analyzed data they received from the devices.

They found that the storm petrels showed a preference for shallow coastal waters, with short foraging trips being the predominant pattern.

"For parents that have eggs to brood or chicks to feed, they quickly grab some food nearby, which is a fairly reasonable strategy," said Cheng Yachang, the lead author of the paper, who is a postdoctoral researcher in Liu's team.

"We found two distinct foraging strategies. They took longer trips heading southeast and shorter trips southwest. Each strategy was linked to varying environmental factors such as water depth, distance from the coast and sea surface temperature."