* Leach’s Storm-Petrel  Hydrobates leucorhous

Texas Coastal / Offshore Status: Rare to fairly common visitor in late spring to early fall in offshore Gulf of Mexico waters. There are 41 documented records for the state, some involving multiple birds.  An unprecedented 60+ (possibly as many as 100)  Leach’s Storm-Petrels occurred on August 29, 2015. 

Habitat: widespread species occurs in Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans.

Similar Species: Leach’s Storm-Petrel is very similar to the more common Band-rumped Storm-Petrel. Best clues are flight style and rump pattern. Leach’s flight style is nighthawk-like, with deep, erratic wingbeats whereas Band-rumps fly with steady wingbeats and arcing glides. Leach’s also generally shows a broken white rump and a more pronounced forked tail (although both of these features can be tough to see at sea).

* Texas Review Species, requiring written or photographic documentation to TBRC.
(2) Lower Texas Coast Status from Brad McKinney’s annotated checklist (updated 2009).

Seasonal Occurrence Graph

Texas Pelagics Sightings Distribution 

Map 1) The live Google map above shows the geographic distribution of Leach’s Storm-Petrel found in Offshore Texas from lat-long data I’ve captured from 35 years of Texas Pelagics. 
Click on the box in the upper left of the map to view the map legend.
Click on each sighting symbol and the data label will appear showing the time, date and the number of birds seen.
Click on the symbol on the top right of the map to view a larger map.

The next two map images are copied from eBird.

Map 2) The map below is zoomed into Texas and Louisiana to show individual locations.

Map 3) The bottom map is zoomed out to show the GOM, the northern Caribbean Sea and the adjacent western tropical Atlantic ocean. 

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