the clash | 203coastal northern Chile and southern Peru. That region is almost certainly
where the species breeds. Yet only one small colony has been found (see
Chapter 1). Perhaps the guano imprint of colonies could be detected
from the sky or from space. And, in the future, annual monitoring of the
extent of tern colonies on tropical islands set in the bluest seas should
be possible. How tragic it would be if the advent of these modern tech-
niques coincided with a decline of the colonies to oblivion.
***
This book has attempted to paint a picture of how modern devices have
enabled researchers to discover more about the lives of seabirds at sea.
That simple sentence undersells the reality. Posed 50 or even 20 years
ago, certain questions would have been totally unanswerable. Now, for
many birds, they can be answered with some confidence. Not only can
trans- oceanic flights be tracked with startling accuracy, it is also pos-
sible to tell, to within metres, where a breeding seabird is, whether it is
flying or swimming and, if it is swimming, whether it is at the surface
or underwater. If it is underwater, is its dive shallow or deep? It is pos-
sible to monitor the bird’s heart beat and when it gulps down food. Al-
though I admitted in Chapter 1 that it would be an exaggeration to
assert that a seabird can be monitored in as much detail as a person in
intensive care, or a Tour de France cyclist, it is, as we have discovered,
only a small exaggeration.
Sometimes the acquisition of scientific knowledge about the natural
world is reckoned to diminish wonder, as if it were a zero sum game –
more knowledge necessarily equates to less wonder. From a personal
perspective that position is false when applied to rainbows. Even if my
knowledge of the diffraction of light of different colours is not espe-
cially deep and sophisticated, my wonder at and delight in the unwoven
rainbow remains. The same applies to knowledge about seabirds.
Rockhopper penguins are porpoising towards Bleaker Island in the
Falklands. The name is a corruption of Breaker Island, for the breakers
are indeed massive, even frightening. I can wonder whether the pen-
guins are porpoising to reduce their travel costs and still thrill when