A walk in the dark........November 13th

We usually finish for the day around 6pm – there is so much work on the island, and thirteen weeks is not long time to do it all. Even so, after dinner I like to go back into the forest to see who is around, all of us do. It is very dark under the trees despite a full yellow moon, but quiet? No way! The sooty shearwaters yowl like cats, the storm petrels sound like yapping lapdogs and the penguins wheeze like ancient, emphysemic donkeys.

When I approach, the sooties look up at me, slightly concerned but not scared, and not interested either – which is a pity, I’d love to have a conversation with one. The sooty shearwater, aka muttonbird or titi, is an amazing bird – it travels all the way up to the Arctic circle for the European summer and then back to little old Rangatira to breed, returning to the same nest each year. Under the supplejack, a blue penguin peers out, a little curious but he too shuffles off into the dark.

The white-faced storm petrels are small enough to fit in your hand without sticking out too much on either side, perhaps 15 centimetres from beak to tail. They have ridiculously long legs for walking about a forest, but out at sea their long limbs are invaluable. The petrels hover just over the water, slapping and splashing their feet on the surface. Mel says they look like ballroom dancers with their wings outstretched and their feet tapping on the water - but much more lethal: the dance attracts their prey. And when small fish and krill come close, the petrels dive in and snap them up.

The other thing common to the storm petrels is their attraction to lights, quite dangerous if you are wearing a headlamp as they lurch out of the dark straight for your head – lucky they are so small!