Manx shearwater (Puffinus anglorum)
Original title: Boieiro (Puffinus anglorum)
The Manx shearwater, a seabird breeding on the Desertas and remote Madeiran cliffs, locally a bird of ill omen.
A marine web-footed bird, not very common in these islands. It frequents the open sea by day, returning to land late at night. As a day bird it is called boieiro by seafarers; as a night bird it is known throughout Madeira as estrapagado, papagarro or patagarro, onomatopoeic names that imitate its characteristic call fairly well. It breeds on the Desertas (‘deserted islands’) and on the less accessible cliffs of Madeira, such as Curral das Freiras, Areeiro and Penha de Águia. The clutch is a single pure white egg, laid in a hole in the rocks. Many people regard it as a bird of ill omen. According to popular belief, a death will soon occur among the occupants of a house whenever a patagarro alights on it during its nocturnal flight from the mountains to the sea, or vice versa. It migrates, leaving the archipelago during the winter and returning at the end of February or the beginning of March.
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Place
Places mentioned · 04
- Curral das Freiras
Câmara de Lobos. Breeding site on inaccessible rocks.
Small inland parish set in a deep valley believed to be an extinct volcanic crater and Madeira's main eruptive focus. The estate was bought for the nuns of Santa Clara, who fled there in 1566 and gave it their name, and it was created a parish in 1790. It was earlier a pasture and a refuge for runaway slaves and criminals, and it became a julgado of the Funchal comarca in 1927.
- Desertas
Santa Cruz. Breeding site.
An island group near Madeira that was already separated from it at the last eruptions and shares endemic species with it. It was the main orchil-harvesting area, and Wollaston found 89 beetle species there. The islands were investigated by scientific expeditions, including the Endurance scientists in 1914.
- Penha de Águia
Santana. Breeding site.
Truncated-pyramid sea cliff nearly 600 m high on Madeira's north coast, praised for giving its name to a valley of unrivalled beauty. Stuebel considered it the remnant of a destroyed secondary crater, and its seaward face shows double dykes. It is a breeding site of the boieiro and gave its name to an entail.
- Pico do Areeiro
Câmara de Lobos. Breeding site.
The Pico do Areeiro is a peak in Madeira's central mountains, listed at 1,796 m, with snow pits surviving nearby. It was the site of Guilherme Teles de Meneses's observations, of the 1895 mountain house and of the later, eventually abandoned, Areeiro meteorological station. It is also a breeding site of the boieiro (Puffinus anglorum).