A Rain of Birds

One dark and cloudy night we had a rain of birds. I’m not exaggerating (much!). It was a few days before new moon and the sky was incredibly dark. Our boat (as all boats do) had bright deck lights and when I came out of the factory around midnight birds were on deck and flying all around the boat like moths attracted to a flame and, like moths, hurt themselves in the process. They would fly towards the light which was attached to a wall and then fly into the wall. I spent some time picking the birds up and letting them fly off until I realised it was pointless, particularly when I let one go only for it to fly right back into the lights and landed on deck clearly stunned.

The next morning I went out and caught in nets on deck and hidden around the boat. Some had got around the winches for the warp cable and had got covered in oil. Luckily we were heading back to drop someone off in Stanley that day so I gave them to a friend who then gave them to Falklands Conservation. Unfortunately (although not unexpectedly) they were unable to clean them – they would be far too stressed and feeding them while they regained their natural oils would have been impossible so they were put down by the vet.

Most were much luckier. A lot were able to be set free straight away while the rest were just wet and were put in a box to dry off and then let free that evening.



There were several species and all were ones that are generally hard to see, being small and timid.

I identified four species:
wilson’s storm petrels (Oceanites oceanicus)

white-bellied storm petrel (Fregetta grallaria)

slender-billed prion (Pachyptila belcheri)

and common diving petrel (Pelecanoides urinatrix)
The common diving petrel has really blue legs. They aren't entirely clear in the photo but believe me, they were very striking.

It was great to see the birds up close. The storm petrels normally look like butterflies, flitting across the surface of the sea. When you see them up close you realise how much bigger they are, but as soon as they fly off they seem to get much smaller than normal distance allows. Being surrounded by large albatrosses makes them seem tiny.

It was sad that some died but events like this are rare. Luckily, by my being on board and being able to rescue the birds from holes and nets fewer died than would have normally been the case.