Storm-petrels are stranding
An unfortunate sign of the fall season is the spike in reports of Leach’s stormpetrels showing up in places where they should not be. Leach’s storm-petrels are seabirds. They nest abundantly on select isolated islands of the east coast of Newfoundland. Baccalieu Island and the Witless Bay Islands on the Avalon Peninsula together host more than two million nesting pairs of Leach’s stormpetrels. The little black seabirds with a bright white patch on the lower back just above the tail make the stormpetrel unmistakable. They are about the size of a robin but with longer black wings. They have an interesting hooked bill with an obvious nasal tube at the base of the bill. The Leach’s stormpetrel is also known as Mother Carey’s chick.
Leach’s storm-petrels are at home on the open sea but become vulnerable to predators when they come to land nest. They nest in burrows dug into the soft ground on small islands. This keeps them safe from both gulls and foxes. To avoid interactions with gulls, the stormpetrels leave their burrows only under the cover of darkness.
At night when all the other birds are sleeping the storm-petrels begin to stir in the burrows. Some of those that had spent the daylight hours far out to sea quickly fly shoreward to their nesting island. The night sky over the island becomes full of sound that has been described as an abrupt muffled laughing while various purring and chattering sounds answer from within the burrows underground. Parent storm-petrels that have been feeding on zooplankton 200 kilometres or more from colony for several days come back with a store of concentrated nutrient-rich soup to feed the chick. Adults may exchange duties in the burrows. Well before the first hint of light in the eastern horizon all the storm-petrels are safe inside their burrows or have flown back out to sea.
Leach’s storm-petrels look after themselves very well on the open sea in all kinds of weather and evade any predators. They are so adapted to sea life that they sometimes find themselves in difficulty when they come into contact with man’s advancements in life. Storm-petrels are attracted to artificial lights. It is often a fatal attraction. At sea they are attracted to lights on boats. Frequently they fly toward the source of light and bang into something and tumble to the deck. Once on the deck of ship they often do not get back to wing again. They cannot cope with the flat hard surface of a ship’s deck. The legs are weak and far back on the body, so the bird cannot give itself a push into the air from a level surface. If the birds are not picked up and tossed back out to sea they may die of exposure and starvation over a period of days. Often, they crawl into a dark place under something where no one finds them until it is too late.
A similar problem happens with the young birds that are leaving the nesting colonies during October. They leave the colony during the dark hours to avoid predation from gulls. However, the young with no previous experience with artificial lighting are easily attracted to lights in our coastal communities at night. The glow of the city lights of St John’s in particular is a magnet to these naive birds. They get confused and may be forced to make an emergency landing at a random location on the ground. They can turn up anywhere in a back yard, a shopping centre parking lot or on a roadway.
If you find a storm-petrel on the ground this is what you can do to save it. Pick up the very docile bird and place it in a cardboard box. If it is wet throw some paper towels in the box to help it dry off before release. It will not accept handouts. Do not try to feed it and especially do not add a dish of water to the box which may cause the bird to get wetter than before it went into the box. When it is dark take the bird to the ocean where there are no bright lights. For example, Middle Cove would be good, but St. John’s harbour would not. At the shoreline hold the bird gently in two hands then toss it lightly into the air. If the bird is going to survive it will fly away into the night. If you try to release it during daylight there is a good chance you will see a gull come out of nowhere and chase the storm-petrel until it catches it and then swallow it before your very eyes. There has been more than the usual number of stormpetrels stranded in the city so far this month. It could happen to you. Make it a positive experience.