Question: is the bird you are most interested in a storm petrel? if it is, why?

Renata Medeiros answered on 17 Jun 2013:

Yes, it is indeed! However, there are many different species of storm petrels so I am really interested in this group of birds but not in one species in particular (though the European storm petrels are probably a little bit special). I believe if I tell you a little bit about these birds you will understand why.
Storm petrels very small (the smallest species are about the same size of a sparrow and the biggest around the size of a blackbird) and yet they spend all their lives far out at sea, surviving storms or the heat of the sun without any sort of protection (a tree or a bush to hide) and despite that they usually live up to 20 or 30 years (any small animal tends to live much less, a very lucky sparrow might get to 4 or 5 years)! They only come to land when they have to lay and incubate eggs but they do it inside burrows on remote islands with no humans or rats. Storm petrels are amongst the oldest group of birds on earth and there are many of them but most people will spend their lives without even knowing of their existence, let alone seeing one! People that do know them usually feel very inspired and you can find poems, paintings and many old stories and myths told about these mysterious birds. For instance, the sounds they make when they are in their nests underground have been compared to the sound of a fairy being sick!! Because they are not used to people they do not fear us and do not really try to escape when you hold them – it is such an amazing feeling to have a wild animal sitting nicely on the palm of your hand, looking only perhaps a bit puzzled.
I could go on and on and on and on but I’ll leave you to find out more yourself, it’s worth it! When it comes to storm petrels, there are just so many interesting questions waiting to be answered that any new little thing I uncover about their lives feels to me like the discovery of the century (though I know it isn’t really)!