Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Nicholas @petrel-nut.bsky.social · Jul 5

Providence Petrel defending its burrow to all comers at the world’s 2nd only breeding island, Red Knoll, Phillip Island Norfolk. #SuperSeabirdSunday#Seabirds🪶

1 3 18

Nicholas @petrel-nut.bsky.social · Jun 22

Placid Little Shearwater on the forest floor of Phillip Island, Norfolk. #SuperSeabirdSunday#Seabirds🪶

4 20

Nicholas @petrel-nut.bsky.social · May 20

Something to get you thinking…
worldseabirdunion.org/world-seabir...
#Seabirds

5 13

Nicholas @petrel-nut.bsky.social · Apr 27

Yellow-legged gulls, looking statuesque (with other statues) on a Roman era bridge over the Tiber, Rome. #SuperSeabirdSunday will be whatever I come across in Europe for the next two months. Got to love #Seabirds🪶

1 3 38

Nicholas @petrel-nut.bsky.social · Apr 19

No chocolate eggs but a pair of freshly hatched Little Penguin chicks from late last season. #SuperSeabirdSunday🪶

5 35

Nicholas @petrel-nut.bsky.social · Apr 14

Australasian Seabird Groups Pacific Travel Grant enabled NGO presenters to share stories of seabird conservation successes and challenges at the 1st ever gathering in Auckland New Zealand as part of 2025 Oceania Seabirds. Inspiring & sobering so much yet to be started. #Pacificseabirds#Seabirds🪶

Nat Forsdick @natforsdick.bsky.social · Apr 13

Alanna Smith & Kas Silk present on #OceaniaSeabird #conservation efforts from the Cook Islands, where rat eradication has been a major focus. Seabirds of the Cook Islands has just started a 2 yr petrel & shearwater monitoring project.

1 2

Nicholas @petrel-nut.bsky.social · Apr 14

A conference in Auckland New Zealand this week brings together Pacific seabird people from research, management and government to speak, listen and have hands-on experiences with regional experts to inspire and encourage connections and commitment for their conservation. #Pacificseabirds #Seabirds🪶

Welcome slide image for a conference on seabirds in Auckland New Zealand

Downtown Auckland New Zealand with image taken from the perspective of high in a city apartment, but still with a Red-billed gull (circled) flying down at street level

A Samoan speaker delivering an address from a lecture podium

A Cook Islander speaker delivering an address from a lecture podium

2 10

Nicholas @petrel-nut.bsky.social · Apr 12

A peculiar male petrel (and Storm-petrel) habit is the courtship growl- I’ve often heard it from burrows but didn’t realise it involved inflation of the throat. Some species can have a very low register for their body size. Here a White-necked Petrel gives it his all. #SuperSeabirdSunday🪶

6 49

Nicholas @petrel-nut.bsky.social · Apr 5

A sleepy view of a pair of Black-winged petrels on a lazy afternoon, Phillip Island Norfolk. #SuperSeabirdSunday🪶

10 54

Nicholas @petrel-nut.bsky.social · Mar 29

The Brown (previously Common) Noddy protecting its egg and keeping an eye on us as we step over its nest- built on the steep track, traversed between the landing site to the research hut on Phillip Island, Norfolk. #SuperSeabirdSunday🪶

2 19

Nicholas @petrel-nut.bsky.social · Mar 27

Hose pipes (‘waddies’) are flexible detectors that chicks will nibble on when presented. At 2 mths old, the chicks impact on a burrow makes it certain of presence when checking. Extraction can be difficult when beyond arms length, waddies are use to persuade chicks to move close to entrance.

1 1

Nicholas @petrel-nut.bsky.social · Mar 27

Assisting in the 66th productivity survey of shearwaters on Montague Island, coastal NSW. Using hose pipes for detection, downy young are extracted for banding and species ID. For 25 yrs Wedge-tails have been in the ascendency as tropical conditions strengthen southwards. Climate changing.#Seabirds🪶

Bright morning sunlight highlights six people standing around a study plot- delineated by metal picket posts and flags. The vegetation is waist deep sedge. The background shows a lighthouse on the far left, ocean in the mid-background and distant land

Person holding a tape-delineated plastic rod, held in dirty hand with a lighthouse in the background

Downy covered shearwater chick, with an exposed leg showing a metal band. The calm ocean visible on far right and rocky landscape on the left background

2 2 25

Nicholas @petrel-nut.bsky.social · Mar 22

A Masked Booby indicates that my presence on the nearby track is as close as he’s happy with. His chick is in agreement. Phillip Island, Norfolk. #SuperSeabirdSunday🪶

2 16

Nicholas @petrel-nut.bsky.social · Mar 15

White-necked (naped) petrel pair in courtship The males growl in contrast to the females more common strident cry. Phillip Island, Norfolk (50 pairs). #SuperSeabirdSunday#Seabirds🪶

9 32

Nicholas @petrel-nut.bsky.social · Mar 15

Given the trans- Pacific and sub-Antarctic islands affinities of the sub-species (graphic from a 2014 genetic paper on the species using my samples), I should have not been surprised by the track- but I was. Small populations and seldom visited- maybe this is all we get.

Nicholas @petrel-nut.bsky.social · Mar 15

The White-bellied Storm-petrel trip also gave up one of two deployed GLS loggers. 1st ever track. Aust. to Chile (10K km) and down towards the Antarctica coast. Unprecedented?! So hard to access remote colonies with over 80 island-days available (2009-2025) but only 8 landings possible.#Seabirds 🪶

Small storm-petrel in-hand at night. Exposed legs showing colour tape around metal band on one leg and Global Light Sensing logger attached to a band on the other leg

Image of South Pacific with Australian land mass on far left and a series of red dots indicating the movements of a tracked seabird

1 23 62

Nicholas @petrel-nut.bsky.social · Mar 13

These concrete-perlite units still require a timber shade to reduce thermal loading. The deformed 55mm tunnel entrance restricts access to larger species ensuring a positive outcome for Storm-petrel productivity. Paper to come.

Storm-petrel burrows with slotted drain-pipe entrance with reduced tunnel-height from deforming mass of additional rock over entrance.

White-bellied Storm-petrel fledgling cupped in a set of hands

1 1

Nicholas @petrel-nut.bsky.social · Mar 13

It’s taken 2 years but our hard work on Roach Is. off Lord Howe has been successful. Providing habitat for White-bellied Storm-petrels- safe from larger Little Shearwaters that take over natural burrows during chick provisioning. A slow burn project with many collaborators invested in success.

Cement-perlite nesting burrow with White-bellied Storm-petrel adult sitting in nest within

Cement-perlite burrow with slotted drain pipe tunnel protruding into a nest containing a recently hatch white-bellied Storm-petrel

Person in foreground carrying two buckets and a third bucket in a backpack on their back, up a steep slope. Sooty Terns fly about in the air above. The background is dominated by two large mountains, with cloud caps and a stretch of calm ocean between the two sites.

Two circular concrete caps sit atop cylindrical nesting chambers set in grass tussocks, with weighty rock semi/collapsing a tunnel entrance in the foreground. Background shows two peaks on a steep slope with ocean behind.

2 3 18

Nicholas @petrel-nut.bsky.social · Mar 8

Ridiculously rare footage for #SuperSeabirdSunday from late Feb. trip to Phillip Is. off Norfolk. 2nd only pop. of White-necked Petrels with one in company of Juan Fernandez Petrel, 10,000km from home islands. #Seabirds Amazing🪶

1 5 44

Nicholas @petrel-nut.bsky.social · Mar 4

The Southern Shark Ecology Group has been tracking Tigers in the waters around Norfolk Island, with arrival and departure the same as Wedge-tailed Shearwaters. A huge 75% of their diet is seabirds! We are in the 1st stage of a collab to see if shark and shearwater migration areas match.#Seabirds🪶

Large shark held against a boat with tether ropes. Ocean around boat is calm. A person is leaning on side of vessel

Grassy trail on a slope at night with several large birds alighted in the medium foreground and distance

Large grey seabird being held with on leg extended. The leg has a bulky device affixed to the leg. The lighting shows it is nighttime.

15 39

Nicholas @petrel-nut.bsky.social · Mar 1

Kermadec Petrel ‘606’ has done a great job as a first-time parent on Phillip Island, Norfolk. However, nest placement means every blowy day is a bad-hair-day! #SuperSeabirdSunday#Seabirds🪶

7 32

Nicholas @petrel-nut.bsky.social · Feb 25

Nice to get hands on a few of these Grey Noddies (Ternlets) on Phillip Island off Norfolk (under ethics permitting) for GLS recovery to help a student attempting to unravel some of the mystery of these little-studied birds.#Seabirds 🪶

Small Ternlet in hand with right leg showing a numbered metal band and left leg, tucked near wing but exposing a Global Light Sensing logger. Background of open sea and rocky ravine

1 2 22

Nicholas @petrel-nut.bsky.social · Feb 23

Red-tailed Tropicbirds struggle on land and, when it comes to incubation shift-changes, those stubby legs mean significant effort to get the egg settled in the brood-patch. 2 of 2. #SuperSeabirdSunday#Seabirds🪶

2 13

Nicholas @petrel-nut.bsky.social · Feb 15

How does a large bird with short legs manage incubation duties? Red-tailed tropicbirds are clumsy but get the job done. 1 of 2 #SuperSeabirdSunday#Seabirds🪶

7

Nicholas @petrel-nut.bsky.social · Feb 8

Kermadec Petrel ‘606’ was only away from the colony 20 months after fledging in March 2021. It loudly announced its return just 4 m. from the old nest. Now incubating, in all weathers, only 2 from here. Hopefully we’ll get to meet its partner in our next visit. #SuperSeabirdSunday#Seabirds🪶

2 17