* Wedge-tailed Shearwater Ardenna pacifica

Texas Coastal / Offshore Status: Three documented records, 16 June 2022 by Justin LeClaire, Lavaca Bay;  23 Oct 2023 by Jon McIntyre, 3 miles offshore Port Aransas; 08 Jul 2024 by Tabitha Olsen and Gautam Apte Lake Conroe during Tropical Storm Beryl. There are also 2 records from the Florida Gulf Coast, one from Florida’s Atlantic coast and 1 from Offshore Cape Hatteras.

Distribution: Widespread in tropical Pacific and Indian Oceans. 

Never Seen on Texas Pelagic trip. Accidental in Texas.

* Texas Review Species, requiring written or photographic documentation to TBRC.

Seasonal Occurrence Graph

Texas Pelagics Sightings Distribution 

Map 1) The live Google map above shows the geographic distribution of Wedge-tailed Shearwater 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. 

First record for Texas on 2022-06-15 in Lavaca Bay. These first seven photos are copyrighted by Justin LeClaire and Terry Turney and were taken while on a survey for Coastal Bend Bays & Estuaries Program. 

From Justin LeClaire’s eBird description: Bird observed by our team for perhaps 90 seconds from very close range while on a stationary boat during waterbird colony monitoring. The bird appeared dark brownish gray above and mostly clean white below, appeared very long-winged and long-tailed, had white central underwings with complete fully dark margins, relatively bright pinkish feet (seen in one photo), and had effortless buoyant flight even while it was being mobbed by various waterbirds. The bird appeared healthy and strong, but was chased away from the waterbird colony and headed off towards open Lavaca Bay waters and was not seen again.

Second Texas Record 2023-10-23 by Jon McIntyre;  The seven photos below are copyrighted by Jon McIntyre.

Amazing day aboard the “Gulf Eagle” out of Port Aransas today (10/23). This WEDGE-TAILED SHEARWATER was behind a shrimp boat off Port Aransas and gave close views for a couple minutes! Despite very rough conditions and low light, I was able to get some decent photos.

From Jon McIntyre’s eBird Description:  Seen very well for about 2 minutes behind a shrimp boat at GPS coordinates 27 28.214N 96 40.057W. Large shearwater, assumed it was a Great Shearwater at first glance. Very dark top of wings and back. Underside was mostly white with some dark mixed in. Dark bill and dark (smudgy) head. Legs were flesh/pink colored. Bird flew purposefully, usually close to the water.

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