Fitz News in Africa - Birds & Birding: "30 000 holes on Marion Island"

PFIAO. 2011. 30 000 holes on Marion Island. Africa Birds & Birding 16(1):22.

It is still debated quite what the ‘four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire’ refers to in the Beatles’ classic ‘A day in the life’. But for a group of Fitz researchers, the telling lyrics are ‘and though the holes were rather small, they had to count them all’.

In 2009, Peter Ryan, Ben Dilley and Genevieve Jones conducted the first survey of White-chinned Petrel burrows on Marion Island in the Southern Ocean. Compared to those of albatrosses and other surface-nesting seabirds, the population sizes of burrowing petrels are poorly known. Most species are nocturnal, their burrows are often concealed in dense vegetation and it’s difficult to tell whether a burrow is occupied, and if so, by which species of petrel. More...

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