Birds and Birding's Guide to:

Watching THE ALBATROSSES AND PETRELS

Petrel Distribution

As already stated, the Petrels never voluntarily visit the land except for nesting purposes, but they are frequently driven out of their course and often far inland during severe storms. A remarkable case of this kind was recorded some years ago, when, during a violent storm of several days' duration, two specimens of the Sandwich Island Petrel, a bird found normally in the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands, the Galapagos Archipelago, and Canary Islands, were secured in an exhausted condition in the city of Washington. A single specimen had previously been found dead on the shore of England, and one or two are recorded from Scandinavia. In their natural wanderings these birds may have passed around Cape Horn and up into the

North Atlantic, where it is now known a colony of them has been established in the Madeiras, as specimens have recently been received from there, and as a matter of fact it may be added the species was first made known from the Canaries. The specimens taken in Washington were the first ever noted in North America, though very recently an example has been captured in Indiana. The Black-capped Petrel, whose home is around Guadeloupe Island, in the Lesser Antilles, has been captured, probably just after a tropical hurricane, in Virginia, over 200 miles from the sea, in New York State, and also in Hungary. That the Petrels, strong flying as they are, are frequently destroyed during storms, is well shown by Buller in his”Birds of New Zealand.”He says regarding the little Dove Petrel: “This charming little Petrel is extremely abundant off our coasts, and I have often observed flocks of them on the wing together numbering many hundreds. In boisterous weather it appears to suffer more than any other ocean species from the fury of the tempest, and the sea beach is sometimes found literally strewn with the bodies of the dead and dying. I have frequently watched them battling, as it were, with the storm,

till at length, unable longer to keep to windward, they have been mercilessly' blown down upon the sands, and, being unable from sheer exhaustion to rise”on the wing again, have been beaten to death by the rolling surf or pounced upon and devoured by a hovering Sea-Gull."

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