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 and often give eerie contact calls on their night-time visits. They lay a single white egg. They feed on fish, squid and similar oceanic food. Some will follow fishing boats to take scraps, notably the sooty shearwater; these species also commonly follow whales to feed on fish disturbed by them. Traditionally, "Puffinus" has been grouped with the "Procellaria" and "Calonectris" shearwaters. However, more recent results have determined that the genus is apparently paraphyletic and while in part very close to "Calonectris", forms a clade with the genera "Pseudobulweria" and "Lugensa", which were formerly presumed to be gadfly petrels, and can