A shearwater or petrel of the southern oceans.
Family Procellariidae: several species, in particular (in Australia) the short-tailed shearwater (Puffinus tenuirostris), and (in New Zealand) the sooty shearwater (P. griseus)
Example sentencesExamples
- In coastal areas they have been known to kill and eat young mutton birds.
- Also known as mutton birds, the shearwaters usually travel past the west coast of Ireland before crossing the Atlantic to nest in their native Tierra Del Fuego during mid December.
- The Maori had taken huge quantities of eels and mutton birds back to New Zealand.
- The Maori cuisine is based on seafood, mutton birds (young petrels), wild pork or fowl, fat lamb, and kumara.
- Similarly, we have the example of the mutton birds in the Titi Islands.