The short-tailed shearwater colonies on Phillip Island and in the Westernport Bay area are home to around one million birds.

Their 15,000 kilometre annual migration journey takes them up the Pacific Ocean to Japan and on to the Arctic - the Aleutian Islands off Alaska.

The return journey is via the west coast of north America, thereby completing a figure of eight flight pattern. The shearwaters return to Australia in September to their original burrows in the sandy dunes fringing Phillip Island's southern coast. Or they build another nearby.

Road signs on Phillip Island advise when the shearwaters have begun their annual migration.

Source: https://www.phillip-island-balcony.com/Short-tailed-Shearwater.html