Breeding
It currently breeds on the coasts of Wales and Ireland; on the Shetland, Orkney, and Scilly Islands; and on the Inner and Outer Hebrides; the Azores, Salvages, and Madeira Islands. Also Iceland and the Faroe Islands and 3 times in Bermuda. (17)

It breeds further north than any other Shearwater.

More Manx in North America Now Than In The Late 1800's ?
The occurence of the Manx Shearwater  is described in Bent's (16) Life Histories of North American Petrels and Pelicans and Their Allies as very rare .  According to Lee and Haney (17) before 1900 it was considered an accidental in the north west Atlantic. Offshore records began increasing in the 1950's and accelerated in the 1970's and 1980's .

A trip to Stellwagen Bank during the summer may see 0-20 Manx Shearwaters with some  years being better than others.  The Manx may be seen on the first trips of the summer and into the fall. Fluctuations in numbers is probably related to the food supply on Stellwagen Bank the destination of most trips.

Newfoundland Colony
According to Cairns et al 1987 ( 13) on Middle Lawn Island just off the coast of the Burin Peninsula of Newfoundland. Cairns cites 100 breeding pairs and at least 300 nonbreeding singles. Breeding in North America on Newfoundland appears to have begun around 1977..


Does It Breed on Cape Cod and Other Questions?
Harrison 1983 (2) reports breeding on Cape Cod and Enticott and Tipling (1) 1997 report 1-10 pairs increasing in Massachusetts. Even the new book by Olney and Scofield (23 ) (2007)  claims that it breeds in North America (Newfoundland, Labrador, Gulf of St. Lawrence to Gulf of Maine and Massachusetts)

But does it? There is a documented report of a nest with eggs on Penikese Island in 1973. Unless Massachusetts ornithologists are keeping the nests a secret in order to protect the birds, the bird is not breeding in Massachusetts today.

Why do we see so many in our waters?
An even better question is why do we see so many Manx Shearwaters all summer long in our waters. A northern hemisphere breeder, the Manx should be busy with its nesting during our summer. Many however seem to be hanging around our area. Perhaps these are immature birds. There is little difference in the plumage of immature birds as compared to adults.

Why are they hanging out here now when they were not here in the late 1800's. Or maybe they were here, but without binoculars and with so many more Greater Shearwaters they went unnoticed. Few birders got out to sea in those days, but there were plenty of fishermen.

In 2008 Manx Shearwater were reported from Seabrook Beach in New Hampshire in August .  See Reports 2008 .   Manx Shearwaters were reported all summer from Revere Beach in 2008.

Manx Shearwater on Revere Beach Summer 2008

There were as many as nine Manx Shearwaters present along Revere Beach  in the summer of 2008. Bob Stymeist  photographed a pair copulating on April 25. What is amazing about this is that Shearwaters copulate on land, in or near the burrow. Are these immature birds? Teenagers perhaps? This led several interested ornithologists to search for breeding birds on the Boston Harbor Islands.

Photograph of Manx Shearwaters  from Revere Beach by Bob Stymeist and used with his permission. Photos remain the property of the photographer.

The following is an E-mail from Bob Stymeist describing his search for a nesting pair

Subject: Boston Harbor Islands
From: "rstymeist(AT)juno.com" <rstymeist@juno.com>
Date: 13 Jun 2008 2:20pm

On Thursday, myself,Andrew Bernick, Carol Trocki and Peter Paton from the
University of Rhode Island had special permission from the National Park Service
 and the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) to camp on Middle
Brewster in hopes of possibly finding breeding Manx Shearwaters. There have been
 as many as nine Manx Shearwaters that have been present along Revere Beach
since April, I photographed a pair copulating on April 25
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/rstymeist/2440870221/) Speculation of possible
breeding sites included the breakwater at Revere, the Five Sisters in Winthrop
and the Harbor Islands. We chose Middle Brewster( roughly 5+ miles to Revere
Beach) since it has a terrain that would be easy to dig a burrow, there are a
number of rabbits on the island that have made burrows and there are NO rats.
Middle Brewster is also close enough to Calf, Outer and Great Brewster that if
it were a still night we might hear the shearwaters, that apparently make a lot of noise when exchanging nest duties etc.

It was a still and beautiful night- best place to see a sunset with the whole
city in orange- but the gulls were a bit noisy ALL night, though calmed down
quite a bit after 11PM. The young cormorants are also very noisy- though in a
sweet way- the adults on the other hand grunt LOUDLY. Night Herons also called.
We did NOT hear any shearwater sounds and we were stationed at both ends of the
island, so the search is still on- these birds HAVE to be breeding somewhere
close! We set up tents in the grove of Siberian Elms and the only excitement
came at 2AM when a gull tried to come into Peter's tent!

Wayne Petersen and Marc Albert from the Park service joined us at 7:40 this
morning and we made a boat based survey of YOUNG Common Eider, today's survey
found 122 eider chicks- a big improvement over the 26 we saw at the same time
last year. The Great Black- Backs gulp these ducklings like pop corn. We watched
 a GBBG scoff up young cormorant chicks too. Some of these ducklings are big
enough now to survive- but it's a far cry from the number of nests and eggs that
 we found- and nearly 300 ducklings two weeks ago. (we did flush a female eider
off a nest on Middle Brewster- so some are still on nest.

On the platform by Spinnaker/Hog Island we estimated over 250 Common Terns on
territory. On Snake Island- we found an American Oystercatcher nests and believe
 there are FIVE pair on the Island and  probably five pair of Willets there.
Also had a few Ruddy Turnstones, 7 Black-bellied Plovers , a Short-billed
Dowitcher, 5 Semi Sandpipers and 2 Salt Marsh Sharp-tailed Sparrows.

Today's more unusual birds were 2 GREAT CORMORANTS on Outer Brewster and Wayne
picked up a PURPLE MARTIN off Deer Island!

Bob Stymeist
Arlington