WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR OCEANS?
CYLONE SURFING SEABIRDS
24.07.2024
By Rachel Piper
Ouroceanstv.com Staff Writer
With Twisters, the new action-packed disaster thriller, taking the cinema world by storm this month, there's another group of fearless adventurers making waves in the natural world. ​
Meet the Desertas Petrels, pigeon-sized daredevils that uniquely exploit some of the fiercest tropical cyclones.
“We nearly fell off our chairs. This is the first time we have observed this behavior.”
Francesco Ventura, Postdoc Investigator at WHOI
A life at sea
Desertas petrels (Pterodroma deserta) are pelagic seabirds, meaning they spend most of their life on the open ocean, often only coming ashore to breed. In the case of the Desertas Petrel, this would be during July and August, where they flock to the fiercely protected Portuguese island of Bugio- the only known breeding site for this species.
Map of the Portuguese Islands of Madeira Archipelago — in the Atlantic Macaronesia region. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Pelagic seabirds are highly adapted for long-haul flights, with long and narrow pointed wings.
Pterodroma = “wings on the run”
Steering clear of the storm
Out at sea, intense weather systems pose a perilous threat to seabirds, particularly as they become more frequent or aggressive with the warming sea surface temperatures. Cyclones can cause physical harm, exhaustion, drowning, and displacement from usual habitats. Most seabirds bypass cyclones using their side winds or have learnt to seek out high altitudes in the eye of the storm if they cannot avoid them.
Desertas petrels exploit cyclones for a foraging benefit. Credit: Kirk Zufel
And yet, the intrepid petrels don't just survive the storms; they thrive in them. Thus, they drew the attention of scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). Much like human cyclone-chasers, new research found that in a shocking turn of events, these birds instead seek out storms, tracking them for over thousands of kilometres. Risking 8-metre-high waves and wind speeds of 100 kilometers an hour, these seabirds expertly surf the tailwinds in the wake of ocean storms.
Cyclone surfing
“It's striking how well the birds know how to exploit the large-scale wind conditions over the North Atlantic for their travels.”
Caroline Ummenhofer, Associate Scientist and Physical Oceanography at WHOI
But is there more to this than just adrenaline-junky antics?
The study attributes this never-before-seen behaviour to increased foraging opportunities. Ocean storms cause intense mixing of the sea, churning up food that would usually be too deep to access. Desertas Petrels feed on small fish, squid, and crustaceans. Whether their prey is brought shallower directly by the storm or from chasing phytoplankton brought to the surface, cyclone wakes provide boosts in foraging conditions for these wily seabirds. Such a seafood buffet is too good an opportunity to shy away from!
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This is an excellent example of the resilience of our ocean’s organisms to the changing climate and provides hope in the face of more extreme weather predictions.
The full paper, 'Oceanic seabirds chase tropical cyclones', can be found in Current Biology.