Leach’s Fork-Tailed Petrel — Oceanodroma Leucorrhoa (Vieillot)
This species is a regular but not very numerous visitor to our shores every autumn, its numbers depending largely on the weather, and after heavy gales it is often found inland. It nests in small numbers on St. Kilda and some of the Outer Hebrides, and has also been found nesting off the coast of Kerry; and in time many other breeding stations will probably be found on the islands of our western shores. The single egg is white freckled with rusty spots. In its food and habits it resembles, so far as they are known, those of the Storm Petrel.
The adult is dark leaden black, rather more sooty below; upper tail coverts white; tail sooty black and deeply forked. Length 8 in.; wing 6 in.