Species fact sheet by Global Register of Migratory Species - www.groms.de

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Migrates in flocks of few hundred birds, mostly offshore; winters in smaller flocks. Siberian and Alaskan birds migrate through the Bering Sea and Bering Strait, past the Californian coast of to W South America, where they frequent Humboldt Current region off Peru, Flocks of dozens regularly seen in Oct off Monterey, California, but most birds probably migrate further offshore. Large numbers of adults from E Canada and Greenland migrate SE through the Atlantic to winter off SW Africa (mostly Namibia and Cape Province), where many adults but very few young are recorded in the Benguela Current region; rarely moves E to Mozambique. Some Canadian birds migrate overland, where recorded from Rocky Mts to Great Lakes, usually solitarily. Autumn storms may drive many birds onto mainland coasts, e.g. in W Europe (over 2000 in W France in autumn 1993, and 850 there in Sept 1995).   (del Hoyo J, Elliott A, Sargatal J (eds), 1996)

• digitised by GROMS, after del Hoyo J A Elliott; J Sargatal (eds) (1996) - www.hbw.com,
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