Birds of the World - Pachyptila


Slender-billed Prion (Pachyptila belcheri) Range: SO: Isla Noir (off s Chile), Falkland Is., Crozet Is. (s of Madagascar, sw South Indian Ocean) and Kerguelen (se Indian Ocean) Port Fairy, Victoria, Australia
Photograph by Ed Dunens Copyright and usage info This file is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 License (cc-by-sa-2.0). In short: you are free to share and make derivative works of the file under the conditions that you appropriately attribute it, and that you distribute it under this or a similar cc-by-sa license.

Prions are small birds similar to Storm Petrels, usually at around 20-25 cm., and are very hard to differentiate. The slender bill is hard to be certain about.

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Fulmar Prion (Pachyptila crassirostris) Range: SO: Heard I. (sc Indian Ocean) and outlying New Zealand is.


Antarctic Prion (Pachyptila desolata) Range: SO, AN: islets of subantarctic to Antarctic oceans (mainly s of Antarctic Convergence) from Antarctic Pen. to Scott I. (n of Ross Sea) Macquarie (far se of Australia) and Auckland is. (s of South I., New Zealand) Western Cape, South Africa
Photograph by Graham Searll © All Rights Reserved.

Like storm petrels, prions live far from shore and hop along the surface of the water picking off floating items.

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MacGillivray's Prion (Pachyptila macgillivrayi) Critically Endangered Range: AO, IO: Roche Quille, off St. Paul I. and formerly Amsterdam I. (c South Indian Ocean) and Gough (Tristan da Cunha group, sc Atlantic Ocean)

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Salvin's Prion (Pachyptila salvini) Range: IO: Prince Edward and Crozet is. (sw Indian Ocean)


Fairy Prion (Pachyptila turtur) Range: SO: islets of s subtropical to subantarctic oceans from Falkland Is. to outlying New Zealand is. Victoria.Port Fairy Pelagic, Victoria, Australia
Photograph by Ed Dunens Copyright and usage info This file is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 License (cc-by-sa-2.0). In short: you are free to share and make derivative works of the file under the conditions that you appropriately attribute it, and that you distribute it under this or a similar cc-by-sa license.


Broad-billed Prion (Pachyptila vittata) Range: SO: islets off South I. and outlying is. groups of New Zealand, and Nightingale, Inaccessible, and Gough (Tristan da Cunha group, sc Atlantic Ocean) The Snares, New Zealand
Photograph by Bradley Hacker © All Rights Reserved.

Compare to Slender-billed Prion.