White-faced storm petrel (Pelagodroma marina)
Original title: Calcamar (Pelagodroma marina)
The white-faced storm petrel breeds in the Selvagens in spring and summer, nesting in burrows; its only other known breeding area is western Australia.
A web-footed seabird of the family Procellariidae which comes to breed in the Savage Islands (Selvagens) during the spring. This elegant little bird appears there at the end of winter and stays until July or August, when it heads back south. The egg is laid at the end of a winding underground burrow; there is a single white egg with small purplish spots, which sometimes cover the whole surface and at other times cluster around the broader end. On Selvagem Grande (‘great wild island’) its enemy is a mouse that abounds there, which not only attacks the bird but also devours its egg. The breeding of this bird has been found at only two almost diametrically opposite points of the earth: the Selvagens and the west coast of Australia.
In this article
Place
Places mentioned · 03
Abroad
- Australia
Only other known breeding area.
Country named as the main region of origin of acacias and the native land of Eucalyptus globulus. It is also the only other known breeding area of Pelagodroma marina. A major believed António de Abreu may have sighted it.
- Savage Islands
Funchal · Selvagens. Breeding ground of the bird.
A small uninhabited island group, politically part of the Madeira archipelago. The Elucidário covers its geography, geology, fauna, ownership history and legends of hidden treasure, including Shackleton's treasure plans, and notes the annual hunting of shearwaters and rabbits. It is the only remaining home of the limpet Patella vulgata and was studied by naturalists such as Lowe and Garreta.
- Selvagem Grande
Funchal · Selvagens. A mouse there preys on the bird and its eggs.
Selvagem Grande is the largest island of the Selvagens group, with cisterns, springs and shelters; its highest point is the Pico da Atalaia and the two Palheiros rocks lie nearby. The Elucidário notes its limestone and selenite deposits and characteristic volcanic bombs, and records that it is the only locality of the fossil genus Cabralia. Its geology was studied by Adolfo César de Noronha and in a 1911 paper by Gagel, it was the subject of one of Somerville's 1915 charts, and rodents there prey on seabird eggs.