The term seabird is used for many families of birds in several orders that spend the majority of their lives at sea. Seabirds make up some, if not all, of the families in the following orders: Procellariiformes, Sphenisciformes, Pelecaniformes, and Charadriiformes. Many seabirds remain at sea for several consecutive years at a time, without ever seeing land. Breeding is the central purpose for seabirds to visit land. The breeding period (courtship, copulation, and chick-rearing) is usually extremely protracted in many seabirds and may last over a year in some of the larger albatrosses;[1][2] this is in stark contrast with passerine birds. Seabirds nest in single or mixed-species colonies of varying densities, mainly on offshore islands devoid of terrestrial predators.[3] However, seabirds exhibit many unusual breeding behaviors during all stages of the reproductive cycle that are not extensively reported outside of the primary scientific literature.
- ^ Carboneras, C. 1992. "Family Diomedeidae (Albatross)" in Handbook of Birds of the World Vol. 1. Barcelona: Lynx Editions.
- ^ Brooke, M. 2004. Albatrosses And Petrels Across The World. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.
- ^ Schreiber, Elizabeth A. and Burger, Joanne. 2001. Biology of Marine Birds. CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida.