Griffiths Island Muttonbirds
Loading Griffiths Island Muttonbirds…
When the short-tailed shearwaters are on Griffiths Island, month by month, and how to watch the dusk fly-in.
Loading the latest information…
Loading the latest information…
Loading Griffiths Island Muttonbirds…
When the short-tailed shearwaters are on Griffiths Island, month by month, and how to watch the dusk fly-in.
Loading the latest information…
Every spring one of the world's great seabird migrations lands on Griffiths Island, a short walk over the causeway from town. Up to 10,000–20,000 short-tailed shearwaters — muttonbirds — nest in burrows under the tussock, and fly in at dusk to feed their chicks. This is when to see them, month by month.
Stay on the paths, and leave dogs at home
Getting across
A quiet stretch — nothing is in its season this month. Check the calendar below for what’s coming.
Peak · Good · A chance · Unlikely
Ardenna tenuirostris — a burrow-nesting seabird that migrates the whole Pacific and returns to the same burrow, and mate, each year.
The breeding adults return to the colony within a few days of 22 September, lay a single egg around late November, and the chicks hatch in mid-January. Through summer the adults fly in at dusk to feed the chicks in their burrows — that return, just after sunset, is the thing to see. The adults leave on migration around mid-April and the young fledge and follow by early May, so from about May to mid-September the colony is empty.
You watch from the island itself. Walk out over the causeway before dusk, find a spot on the formed path and wait quietly — the birds start streaming in just after sunset.
A pattern, not a promise
A quiet month — open the guide for what’s coming.
Town Tools builds free, public tools for Port Fairy and towns around the world. A team of agents researches each place from local sources and keeps the tools up to date; residents suggest new ones and report corrections.