Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Island Kingdoms
The largest seabird colony in Newfoundland waters is on Baccalieu Island, just off the northwestern tip of the
Avalon Peninsula, near Bay de Verde. It derives its name from the Basque word for codfish, reflecting the pro-
ductivity of the local waters. The colony hosts eleven species of breeding seabirds, a greater diversity than any
other colony in the province, including blacklegged kittiwakes, common and thick-billed murres, razorbills,
northern fulmars, gannets, and puffins. But its most numerous resident breeder is also its most inconspicu-
ous—the Leach's storm petrel, which numbers more than 3 million pairs, making Baccalieu the largest Leach's
storm petrel colony in the world.
A seabird colony is a primal place, all sound and fury, darkness and light.
Petrels are starling-sized, soot-colored birds that forage far out to sea and only return to their breeding is-
lands at night, a strategy evolved to foil potential predators such as gulls. In the past, the sighting of petrels
near land— whether Leach's storm petrels or Wilson's storm petrels—was considered a sign of bad weather,
and for this reason they were sometimes called “gale birds.” The term “petrel” appears to be a corruption of
“St. Peter,” the apostle who supposedly walked on water, which is what a storm petrel appears to do when it is
foraging for zooplankton on the wave tops. A further term applied to petrels in medieval times was Mother
Carey's chicks, a sobriquet sailors invoked in the hope that Mater cara would protect them from storms at sea.
