128 | Chapter 6
porches, back yards, pigsties, gardens, roads, turnip- fields; and are caught
by foxes, dogs, opossums, raccoons, gulls, ravens, crows and boys. During
the 1911– 12 wreck of the Little Auk a doctor in Finsbury* met one enter-
ing his surgery door; it snapped at anyone who tried to handle it.”^24
Wrecks are not solely a feature of higher latitudes. They may also
occur at lower latitudes, especially in association with hurricanes. For
example, in 2008 hurricane Gustav brought wholly marine species, in-
cluding Magnificent Frigatebirds and Sooty Terns, to the land- locked US
state of Arkansas.^25 Those stray birds provided a thrill for bird- watchers
but, arguably, their straying, and likely deaths, had little impact on the
worldwide populations of frigatebirds and terns.
Nonetheless there are occasions when hurricanes exert extreme im-
pacts on seabird colonies. Bermuda holds modest numbers of Common
Terns nesting 1,000 km from the nearest North American colony. In
early September 2003, when the hurricane Fabian passed over Ian Nis-
bet’s small study colony of 10– 30 pairs, all the breeding males were elim-
inated.^26 Only females survived to return in 2004. In the absence of a
choice, the females paired with each other and inevitably laid infertile
eggs. Over the subsequent years, males returned and chicks were reared
once more. The guess is that these males were immature at the time of
Fabian’s onslaught, away at sea, and not in the vicinity of the colony.
They survived to become fathers in later years.
A wise seabird might do well to avoid hurricanes and doubtless migra-
tory routes have, at least in part, evolved to reduce the likelihood that
birds will encounter severe weather. This is akin to yachtsmen habitu-
ally avoiding the Caribbean during the hurricane season. More intrigu-
ing is the possibility that birds can detect the approach of extreme
weather from afar, and then take preparatory avoiding action. Exactly
this ability appears to be within the skill set of the Golden- winged War-
bler, a mite weighing about 9 g and one of the smallest birds to be
tracked by geolocators.^27 In the second half of April 2014, five male war-
blers arrived back on the Tennessee breeding grounds. But trouble was
brewing in the form of an approaching tornado which, across the central/
- (^) A district of central London, not to be confused with Finsbury Park, the Underground sta-
tion in north London where Arsenal supporters alight to watch football matches.