The Storm-petrels

The definitive work on the European Storm-petrel and its relatives, by one of the world's leading experts on the species.

Imagine a bird as small as a sparrow, which lives most of its life on the open ocean yet can survive for decades. It walks on the water, and migrates half way around the world, returning to remote islands to breed underground, often in exactly the same rock crevice each year. To attract a mate it sings like a fairy and smells aromatic, but it vomits oil onto its enemies. It visits its nest by night, lays a single enormous egg, and feeds its chick until the nestling weighs more than both it parents put together. It seems to have little fear of humans, but was itself sometimes feared by ancient seafarers.

This might sound like the stuff of legend, but is actually the description of a real creature; the European Storm Petrel, walker on water, shadow in the night, global wanderer, climate sentinel and open-ocean survivor.

Few people other than offshore fishermen and keen bird-watchers have seen or even heard of them, yet storm-petrels are relatively abundant birds, and one of the most surprising and endearing of our native European species.

This, the latest in the Poyser series, follows the remarkable life of the European Storm-petrel, from the remote North Atlantic islands where they breed via the coasts of Africa to the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean where they spend the northern winter. Along the way there s coverage of the other members of the storm-petrel family; we learn about their evolution, behaviour, ecology, and adaptations to a life in the harsh and unpredictable environment of the open ocean, and discover what these enigmatic seabirds can tell us about what humans are doing to our planet.

We have been waiting for a decent monograph on the storm-petrels for a long time; Rob Thomas has certainly delivered the goods. British Birds
The passion, fascination and sheer awe Rob Thomas has for storm-petrels leaps off the page, and is infectious … This book is a science-communication tour de force, and a love letter to these very special seabirds. BTO News
A tour-de-force of accessible scientific writing … It is an absorbing read and the author's enthusiasm shines through with each revelation … A very thorough, well-researched account, full of surprising storm-petrel insights to delight even the most clued-up storm-petrel fan. Seabirds

Rob Thomas is a Senior Lecturer in Zoology at Cardiff University, where he has been based for more than 20 years. He specialises in bird behaviour and ecology, particularly the behavioural responses of birds to changing environments. Rob has been involved in storm-petrel studies since he was 16, and his research now takes him to islands in Wales, Scotland and the Faroes to study storm-petrel breeding behaviour, and to the coasts of southern Portugal, where he examines their long-distance migration journeys.

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