Balearic shearwater is silent at sea, but at night the breeding colonies are alive with raucous cackling calls, higher pitched than the Manx shearwater's. The Balearic shearwater feeds on fish and molluscs. It does not follow boats. Balearic shearwater The Balearic shearwater ("Puffinus mauretanicus") is a medium-sized shearwater in the seabird family "Procellariidae". "Puffinus" is a New Latin loanword based on the English "puffin" and its variants, such as poffin, pophyn and puffing, that referred to the cured carcass of the fat nestling of the Manx shearwater, a former delicacy. The specific "mauretanicus" refers to Mauretania, an old name for an area
Puffinus least 1337, but from as early as 1678 the term gradually came to be used for another, unrelated, seabird, the Atlantic puffin, an auk. The current English name was first recorded in 1835 and refers to the former nesting of this species on the Isle of Man. The taxonomy of this group is the cause of much debate, and the number of recognised species varies with the source. The species in this group are long-winged birds, dark brown or black above, and white to dark brown below. They are pelagic outside the breeding season. They are most common in temperate