THE SHEARWATER - just a dumb mutton-bird?

Let's say its spring-time on the beautiful Mid North Coast of New South Wales so we head to our favourite beach to check out the surf only to find it littered by small mutton-birds that have died from exhaustion.  Actually they are Short-tailed and Sooty Shearwaters that have been very successful in 'shearing the water' to fish and had nearly completed a 30,000 km round trip, making them one of the greatest migratory birds in the world.
They had started life as a fledgling that had to learn to walk, swim, fly, dive, and fish all on about the 3^rd May, and wait for it.....find mum and dad who had already left for New Zealand three weeks earlier!

These Short-tailed Shearwaters (Tasmanian mutton-bird, Puffinus tenuirostris) and Sooty Shearwaters (New Zealand mutton-bird, Puffinus griseus) that we find littering our beaches in September, making for an ugly tourist scene, have flown right across the Pacific Ocean from California, heading for the islands in Bass Strait.  In fact there will be at least 16 million of these birds around Tasmania this summer so the Government will allow harvesting of chicks on the Furneaux Group of islands.

Let's make it easy for ourselves and go to Griffiths Island at Port Fairy in south-west Victoria, arriving on 22 September.  Most of the adult shearwaters have already arrived but are out on the ocean, bobbing around as a raft, waiting for the cover of darkness. Now they silently swoop in to find that same burrow they used last year, on an island covered with tens of thousands of burrows under long grass.  All being well the same lifelong mate joins them to sleep off the jet-lag, then they will spruce up the burrow ready for mating in early November.

On the 12 November all the birds go off for a honeymoon over the Southern Ocean to return right on schedule on the 25^th.  Once mum has laid her egg and gone fishing its time for dad to do his bit - incubation for a lonely fortnight, to be relieved by mum for another fortnight.  They repeat this cycle twice more until the chick is hatched early January. By early April little 'chicky' is not so little, weighing nearly twice as much as mum or dad.

Come the 16^th, they bid goodbye to their fat youngster and depart east.

Hang about!  You haven't even taught your baby how to walk properly, let alone fly, swim, dive, fish, or navigate over the vast oceans.
The fledgling finds its own way down to the sea and swims out to join its learner mates.
Somehow they manage to get airborne and then head for the northern tip of New Zealand 2700 kms away, where they catch up with the adults! Now they all head for Japan, then Siberia and finally Alaska, with juveniles often stopping off in a port of call until next year.
As the temperature drops and the breeding season approaches they move on down to California ready for the long haul across the Pacific Ocean to Australia.
"I still call Australia home."

So, how did 'chicky' get those clever instincts in it's tiny brain?

Who programmed the baby mutton-bird that we thought was only good for food and oil?

Acknowledgments: Dept. of Sustainability& Environment - Victoria
                                        National Parks & Wildlife Service - NSW                                
Photo credit: Ryan Shaw