Pelagic or oceanic birds, seabirds or marine birds all describe bird which spend a significant portion of its life on the open ocean, rarely venturing to land except to breed. Their flight is often described as elegant and beautiful. This is particulary true for the Black-browed Albatross (Thalassarche melanophris), as you can see on the image on the right. Pelagic Birds are powerful fliers that can remain for hours while gliding or soaring over the waves. When the birds rest, they do so by swimming quite high (floating) on the water. Pelagic birds may be found hundreds or thousands of miles offshore. Pelagic birds typically feed on fish, squid and crustaceans as well as offal from fishing ships or trash dumped into the ocean. Although “Pelagic Birds” does not have a scientific meaning in it´s strict sense, normally you mean albatrosses, shearwaters and petrels are described as being pelagic. The right taxonomic description for these birds are “Procellariformes”. There are lots of pelagic bird species with a great range of sizes and ranges. In the Gallery you will find different types of pelagic birds found in the Western Palearctic including shearwaters, albatrosses and petrels. Bird-Lens did enlarge the meaning by adding Gannets or Boobies (like the Northern Gannet or the Brown Booby) and by adding Gulls and Terns which you see often many miles offshore feeding together with shearwaters and petrels.
To cope with the growing demand for top shots of the rarer species of the Palearctic Bird-Lens is keen to enrich the range of pictures of birds you can find in the western palearctic. Trips to remote places to capture images of rare birds of western palearctic were very successful. The nice images you find in the gallery are only a first impression, what you will find in the gallery in the “Pictures Shop” very soon. Just give me a message, if I could serve you with an image needed before the new pictures are online.
Other successful shootings you can see under the shop of: www.bird-lens.com.