Newell's shearwater Newell's shearwater The Newell's shearwater or Hawaiian shearwater ("Puffinus newelli") is a seabird belonging to the genus "Puffinus" in the family Procellariidae. It belongs to a confusing group of shearwaters which are difficult to identify and whose classification is controversial. It was formerly treated as a subspecies of the Manx shearwater ("Puffinus puffinus") and is now often placed in Townsend's shearwater ("Puffinus auricularis"). It is endemic to the Hawaiian Islands It is a fairly small shearwater, in length. The wing is long and the tail is . The bird weighs . The upperparts are black with a brown tinge while
Wedge-tailed shearwater (in common with the other shearwaters) as an adaptation for swimming. This species is related to the pan-Pacific Buller's shearwater, which differs much in colour pattern, but also has a wedge tail and a thin black bill. They make up the "Thyellodroma" group, a superspecies of the large shearwaters that were for a long time included in the genus "Puffinus". Wedge-tailed shearwaters feed pelagically on fish, squid and crustaceans. Their diet is 66% fish, of which the most commonly taken is goatfish. It was thought that the species mostly took food from surface feeding, observations of feeding wedge-tails suggested that