Recorded from a small chartered boat during a whale watch. This is the sound of a shearwater running on the water as it takes flight. They were otherwise silent on this trip.

Recorded with iPhone during a Shearwater Journey's pelagic trip aboard The New Captain Pete.

A large flock, 1000+, of Sooty Shearwater were sitting on the water, all making noise. There did not seem to be any threat, and the birds were not aggressive with one another - they were just yak yak yaking. Common Murre father and chick calls are mixed in there, as is the foghorn of Pillar Point. The birds were packed on the water in a clean edged group with perhaps three or four birds per square meter of undulating ocean.

Debi Shearwater, leading the pelagic, said she had never heard Sooty Shearwaters make this kind of commotion before when not at their breeding grounds; she has 42 years experience at sea.

The original recording on the iPhone was coverted into a MP3. I used Sony Acid to pump up the signal and to fade-in/fade-out the clip.

Sooty Shearwater gather in vast numbers along the California Coast, especially Monterey Bay to Half Moon Bay, arriving in August, leaving in October. They feed heavily on available baitfish and squid before leaving for breeding grounds off New Zealand. This noisy raft of birds appeared to be well fed - they were close inshore and uninterested in getting off the water as the boat drifted by. Skipper Dennis was kind enough to cut the engines so we could try to record the birds. Unfortunately, I was not carrying my standard Sennheiser shotgun and Marantz deck - the voice memo app was my fallback.

bird-seen:yes

playback-used:no

Recorded from a small chartered boat during a whale watch. This is the sound of a shearwater running on the water as it takes flight. They were otherwise silent on this trip.

Presumably a pair calling to each other in a burrow

bird-seen:no

playback-used:no

Just a short clip of the daily pre-dawn chorus of Sooty Shearwaters - its impossible to capture the sheer intensity but if you're sitting amongst them you can feel the sound in your body. The Moriori name for the island is Hokorereoro which means something like the island that reverberates with the sound of birds

Tascam DR05 and Sennheiser ME66. New Zealand, Oban, 14/01/2012, in the night

bird-seen:no

playback-used:no

bird-seen:no

playback-used:no

Call from inside burrow in a mixed colony with Blue Penguins, but I believe this is a Sooty Shearwater.

bird-seen:no

playback-used:no

jumping out of the water with call (like a dolphin), crazy attitude to observe

Call from inside burrow in a mixed colony with Blue Penguins, but I believe this is a Sooty Shearwater.

bird-seen:no

playback-used:no