Their tall fins are a desired ingredient in shark fin soup. We know relatively little about their life histories. You won't see these small birds along the beaches of Cape Cod, because they, like many species of birds on Stellwagen Bank, are a pelagic bunch, coming to land only when they nest. When you're out on the water, look for them fluttering at the surface, pattering their feet on the waves as they feed. On Stellwagen Bank in the summer, they head south for the winter, making their nests on rocky islands at the tip of South America and in Antarctica.
Shearwaters are gull-sized, but have much straighter, stiffer wings.
When resting on the water in a large group, we sometimes hear them making odd, high-pitched cries. Double-crested cormorants use the large rocks there both to nest and to rest, often stretching out their dark wings to dry after they've been fishing. Cormorants are great divers and great fishers, using the sharp hook at the end of their bill to snag small fish in the water. In early summer, look for cormorant chicks in the nests, straining their long necks upward, hoping for a parent to return and regurgitate some food for them. There are colonies of least terns and common terns nesting on Long Point.