The definitive work on the European Storm-petrel and its relatives, by one of the world''s leading experts on the species.Imagine a bird as small as a sparrow, which lives most of its life on the open ocean yet can survive for decades. It walks on the water, and migrates half way around the world, returning to remote islands to breed underground, often in exactly the same rock crevice each year. To attract a mate it sings like a fairy and smells aromatic, but it vomits oil onto its enemies. It visits its nest by night, lays a single enormous egg, and feeds its chick until the nestling weighs more than both its parents put together. It seems to have little fear of humans, but was itself sometimes feared by ancient seafarers. This might sound like the stuff of legend but is actually the description of a real creature; the European Storm-petrel; walker on water, global wanderer, climate sentinel and open-ocean survivor, and a member of a group of around twenty species that form the
