The Storm-petrels

• The Storm-petrels by Rob Thomas (Bloomsbury, 2024).
• 336 pages; 160 photographs, artworks, maps and diagrams.
• Hbk, £60 (ISBN: 9781472985811). Pbk, £35 (ISBN: 9781472985828).
• Buy at BirdGuides bookshop from £55 (hbk) or £31 (pbk)

Most British birders rarely get to see storm petrels, yet some species are among the most numerous birds in the world. It is a fascinating group, some taxa of which are only just revealing their secrets to us – such as Ringed Storm Petrel, whose breeding grounds were found in Chile's Atacama Desert in 2017.

This book comes when interest in these birds is at an all-time high, with new species being described and swelling the number of family members to 28. Indeed, more are likely to be split as DNA lifts the lid on their taxonomy.

Dr Rob Thomas specialises on the behavioural responses of birds to changing environments and has been involved in storm-petrel studies since the age of 16. Although there are many books on seabirds, this is the first definitive work on storm petrels. Rob has focused on European Storm Petrel but this book tackles all the species within the family, 18 and 10 of which breed in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres respectively.

There are opening chapters detailing the family and what makes storm petrels different from other petrels. For a start, they are tiny, and their wings are much shorter but considerably broader in relation to body length than in other petrels. Additionally, their legs are proportionally much longer than those of other petrels.

Diet and foraging behaviours are discussed and although we generally see storm petrels fluttering around just above the surface, they will occasionally dive in search of food, making a shallow plunge directly from the air, quickly reappearing and immediately taking off again. They feed both during the day and night and their diet consists of crustaceans, cephalopods and fish.

Next up is a dive into the storm petrels' sensory world, which reveals that they have substantially enhanced olfactory abilities to locate food using smell. But these abilities extend to identifying mates and navigating to breeding locations. Magnetoreception is likely to be important in this amazing ability and remains an area that we are only beginning to understand.

In a chapter on tracking, we learn that so far very few storm petrels have been studied in this way. From work mostly conducted in the North Atlantic and North Pacific we are learning that the different sexes often use different feeding areas. Over time the development of more advanced tracking systems is likely to uncover much more.

These remarkably resilient birds do suffer from predation. Many of them nest in colonies where they can be easy targets for other birds such as owls, gulls, skuas, crows and small raptors. Mammals, in particular mustelids and mongooses, also target colonies, and there is even a case of Black Bears causing chaos at a colony. Humans have also been predators, and in western North America, storm petrels used to be exploited for food, oil or fish bait.

As with most seabirds, the evidence so far is that the impacts of climate change are diverse but largely negative. In addition to this, the bioaccumulation of chemical pollutants in marine prey may well be a problem. Plus, for those that have become used to free hand-outs, the changing supply of fishery discards is an ever-present challenge.

Two chapters examine in detail all of the storm-petrel species with information on identification, distribution and much more. In some cases that information is still lacking, and there are plenty of avenues to research.

A fascinating chapter looks at storm petrels in human culture. It has long been said by sailors that touching a storm petrel that has strayed on board a ship is a sign of bad luck – even death. Thankfully, most people ignore this claim.

Having read this book you'll want to see some storm petrels, so there is a list of sites to visit and advice on when to get lucky. I am certain it will make the reader respect the immense abilities of these birds. They may be small, but storm petrels are superbly built for harsh marine environments, and this book celebrates those adaptations.