Ideas - Adventures of the late great 'Bird Man' Bill Montevecchi

Episode Date: September 15, 2026

Seabird biologist Bill Montevecchi has been ranked in the world’s top two per cent of scientists. Montevecchi died at the age of 80 in July 2026. In his honour, we share this 2023 documentary by producer Mary Lynk that shines a light on the renowned scientist's humanity and brilliance. Lynk followed Montevecchi on a wild two-day adventure in Newfoundland, climbing steep cliffs to spy on famous seabird colonies, and venturing on a heart-pounding overnight rescue mission of young storm petrels along the coastline.

I'm Phelan Johnson, the host of See You and Corde. It's a podcast about the cases that changed Canada, and we're back with an all-new season. Our first episode is about a woman named Gwen Jacob. On a sweltering day in 1991, Gwen did what she had to do to cool down. She took her shirt off. The 19-year-old was cat-called, fined and arrested, but she refused to back down,

sparking a national debate about bearing breasts. Listen to the story of Gwen's topless walk on C-U-N-Court wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC podcast. I'm running ahead of Bill. I'm starting to just went into the wall, and I'm running to try to protect it first from the gulls that now we're coming by.

Welcome to Ideas. I'm Nala Ayyad. And that person running is Ideas producer Mary Link, up a huge wharf next to a raging Atlantic. Ocean in Southeast Newfoundland, trying to rescue small seabirds crashing into the brightly lit wall of a massive fish plant. A race between her and the large seagulls swooping down for the kill. It's just after midnight, windy, stormy and cold, but also wild, beautiful and intense. A constant hovering between life and death. Day two of her time with seabird scientist Bill Montevaki.

This guy seems fine. He hit the wall pretty hard. Now we'll bring him back. We're going to weigh him, measure him, age him, and then we're going to let him go. So that's great. We got one anyway. Oh, I'm so happy this one's alive. I feel much better after the last one. In 2020, Stanford University ranked Bill Montevichie in the top 2% of the world scientists. 50 years before that, as a young PhD grad in animal behavior from Rutgers University, he was drawn to Newfoundland and its extraordinary seabird colonies, leaving behind his Massachusetts home and never looking back.

Or as Bill likes to say, keep looking up. And that's his approach to his work in Newfoundland, despite the devastating effect of climate change and pollution on seabirds and the arrival in June 22 of the avian flu. Bill Montavecchi passed away on July 11, 2026 at the age of 80. In tribute to this extraordinary scientist, we're re-airing our documentary The Birdman Adventures with Bill Monteviki. Here's Mary at the beginning of a two-day adventure with Bill in the fall of 2022.

Hi. Hi, Mary, how are you? Good to see you. For their first day, a road trip in thick fog and post-hurst hurricane winds from St. John's to the dramatic cliffs of Cape St. Mary's. We're on the highway now and we're heading to Cape St. Mary's. It's the southwestern tip of the Avalon Peninsula in eastern Newfoundland. And it's an absolutely spectacular bird colony.

It has tens of thousands of kitty wakes and murs. And one of the most beautiful and significant Gannet colonies in the world. What's a Gannet? A Gannet is the largest seabird that breeds in the North Atlantic. It's a magnificent animal. They breed in Scotland, in Europe, Germany, Ireland, Iceland, Newfoundland, and Quebec. There's some in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. So the biggest really beautiful white bird with a two meter wingspan, a golden head, and a beak like a dagger, you know, like a six-inch beak that when we handle them, we have to be so careful, you know, to not take a pack or a bite.

It's a big, strong bird. How much does it weigh? How much is it weigh? How much is it weigh? Hey, this is the other thing about Cape St. Mary's, though, that's really significant. So a major part of our research, a major part of everybody's research these days is obviously climate change. Well, Cape St. Mary's happens to be the southernmost colony. I think I'll just say in this lane.

Cape St. Mary's is the southernmost colony of northern gannets in the world. They only breed in the Atlantic. So if you were interested in climate change and you want to ask questions about climate change effects, it seems like, particularly if we're talking about a warming ocean, well then to focus on the southern range limit of a species, and, you know, this particular species in the ocean, a gannet where it breeds, this is where we would expect to see change. You know, this might be the first place when, you know,

hot water, warm water actually affects what these animals do. And St. Mary's is an ecological reserve. Yes, that's correct. Three hour drive and you'll be at the cape. And complete fog. Well, no, but listen, no, the good news is we have northerly winds.

It's totally foggy here. Unless those winds shift, northly wind is the best one to have a clear day. Oh, good. So we might be able to see. I don't know. That's the prediction. We'll come back to our trip to Cape St. Mary's in a bit. I also sat down with Bill at a friend's kitchen table in St. John's.

Here's part of that conversation. Bill, I know there's many different types of seabirds, obviously, but give me the pitch in terms of their importance. Yeah, well, okay, when I look at seabirds, you know, what I see is I see these magnificent, you know, for me it's a window on the ocean. I mean, that's why I study seabirds. I mean, I love the animals. Their behavior is intriguing.

The animals are stunningly beautiful. But it's their lifestyle that really attracts me and how they make their living and how they can live in an environment that's really just quasi-predictable. And on a daily basis, have to know where they can find food. They have to figure it out. And it's constantly changing. And in those circumstances, you have to live in the absolute presence. and you either get it right or you suffer.

And if you don't get it right within four or five days, you die. Under those circumstances, you're truly Olympian in terms of your abilities, cognitive, physical, because you have to be. And it's in ways that we don't understand or can't understand but could tap into by watching their behavior and figuring out, well, what do they do? How do they know that? How do they stay alive? I think they're incredible.

I mean, every time I handle one, yes. It's really special, and I really value that, and I want to do that. But I'm studying them to learn the bigger questions about the ocean and life in the ocean. And the other thing about seabirds, so many of us, there's so many marine biologists in the world in Canada and Newfoundland, highly competent people that study fish and plankton and whales in all of these, And just physical processes of chemical oceanography, currents, et cetera, et cetera, you know, lots of physics. But in the ocean, you know, when you look out over the ocean, you don't see the fish. You might see a whale periodically when it comes to shore to feed.

You see seals sometimes. But the birds, the birds of the evident, you know, they're the most tractable of marine animals to study. When there's an oil spill, we used to get, you don't. refer to them as spills. They were illegal discharges of oil up the south coast of Newfoundland. So ships, tankers, freighters, whatever, they would, you know, coming from Europe, going into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, going into New York, once they passed Cape Race on the southeast tip of Newfoundland, you know, they're out of the northeasterly gales of the North Atlantic. And so they're getting in mellow or water. These bows carry a lot of ballast, a lot of water.

you know, in their bilges to stabilize the boat. So it's like weight in the past people used to with boulders and in the wooden boats. But once they get past Cape Race on the south coast in Newfoundland, they were often chucked the bilge water because they didn't need the stability and they could go faster. And when that happened, that water was really oily. So that wasn't a spill. That was a discharge. It was illegal. Many boats were doing it. But how we found out is because people found oiled seabirds on the south coast in Newfoundland, and they knew, well, they're coming from somewhere, and, you know, it took decades for people to figure it out properly,

and it took decades to regulate it. But essentially, it's been stopped. You know, it's been stopped through the efforts of Canadian Coast Guard. Bill Montefi. Well, no, you know, I mean, Canadian Wildlife Service. Yeah, I spent a lot of time on beaches, And a lot of people, a lot of people, it was compassion. So with the oil spills bill, when you came here 50 years ago, you came here at 26, and now you're 77,

when you came here 50 years ago, that was a big concern, oil spills, right? Oh, huge. But did you, and thankfully, you and many others have fought against it and ended that practice, but could you have predict 50 years ago, did you have a sense where we were heading in terms of climate change what the impact was going to be on birds, on the seabirds, because that's the big thing now. What you were fighting back then was sort of almost easy to fix because it was a simple solution once you'd get the shipping people online

and make them do that. But you can't force Mother Nature to do anything in terms of how it responds to mankind, climate change. So when did you first start seeing the impact of climate change? And how much has that changed your research? and your science. Yeah, well, one thing, so we're in, you know, the concern now is hot ocean. You know, that's our basic concern.

And this whole study of what's called heat waves, and they're just getting to be more and more common. This is the most compelling part in the ocean, it seems, for climate change, these heat waves. And John Piot, he did his Ph.D. at Memorial, he worked with me when he was here. And once he finished, a brilliant, brilliant student. And a brilliant scientist now, he went on to Alaska, and he's been working in Alaska for about 30 years. And when the Exxon Valdez just, you know, ran aground in Prince William Sound and killed tens of thousands of seabirds in one go, John was there. He was the guy that, you know, collected the bodies and did the counts and showed, like, this is a catastrophe of major proportions.

That was then. So to answer your question, just following John Piot's lead, so in 2016, John Piot published a paper on a heat wave in Alaska, and the mortality estimates just for MERS, I think, were 60,000 MERS dead. And there were lots of other birds dead. And I remember, you know, having some discussion with John, and he said, this far outweighs any of the oil spills. that we've ever dealt with. And it was like you just have to pay attention to this because this can change everything.

You know, it's a major concern. And so we're following it. And, you know, the best way I can describe it, it's like a mystery and it's ongoing. You know, we have the avian influenza that just came in and killed tens of thousands of birds here. So tell us about that, the avian. So you've got the waters now off Newfoundland

or like you were saying 16 degrees, which is hot for Newfoundland. I mean, people don't swim in the ocean very much in Newfoundland because it's so cold. But 16 is a pretty, and that has huge impact. And we can talk about it more and will be as we go to Cape St. Mary's and various things. But in terms of the avian flu, this is new. We're talking in the beginning of fall here, but it was only last June, June of 2022 that you first found out about this. Yeah, absolutely. We're in real-time investigation. You know, this is real-time. And, you know, when we go to the northeast coast, you know, we're still getting dead birds.

They're coming in. And that's what we're trying to document, you know, how many birds died, where did they die, when did they die? And at the very least, we'll be able to show the radiation of that disease as it spread in Newfoundland. So, but take me back. So where did it start? and how has it spread so quickly and now has come to, well, to Cape St. Mary's just this June? It's industrial food production, right? They trace it to large chicken production facilities, bird facilities in China. And then through Asia, into Russia, then into Western Europe, and then into, you know, eventually to the coast of Europe. So when did it start? When did it start?

that they first detected in China. And that was a while ago. I mean, I think it's been percolating around there for a few years. It might have even been 215 when there was the first detection. What does avian flu do? Well, the descriptions, you know, the seabirds, I've picked up and tested so many dead seabirds this year. I don't see any, when I look at those dead birds, they look perfectly healthy to me. They look robust. They don't have any injury. So it's sort of like a quick virus. Well, I'm sure, oh, I think it's a slow death. And I think it's a slow, perhaps suffering death, because we'll see birds on the beach. And, you know, it might be a day, it might be two days, and they're just lethargic. Lots of reports of birds at sea just swimming

around in circles. So it's got to be neurological. Gannets that I look at, they have this, you know, absolutely steely gray eye that looks right through you. And, when I've seen some of these sick birds, that's gone. You don't see that in their eye, and you see some dark spots in their irises. So there's just crazy things going on. So what totally intrigued me this summer about what happened is the first instance of this flu. It was with a massive Gannock colony in the Magdalene Islands. And there were dead birds started dying, and those dead birds started showing up in the coast. of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, western Newfoundland. And so that was curious. And, okay, that sort of

happened. But then that would have been in May, early June. And then as June progressed, fishermen from the Buren Peninsula, this would be on the south coast of Newfoundland now, moving from the west coast, fishermen on the Buren Peninsula said, well, there's dead murs everywhere. So then that virus started to spread across the south coast of Newfoundland. And fishermen, you know, about midway across the south coast of Newfoundland, fishermen started reporting, and they were concerned. There's dead murs everywhere on the water. There's dead murs on the beaches.

There's dead gannets. And they were also getting some dead puffins and, you know, a number of others. But, you know, hundreds of birds. And what did you think when you first heard that? Well, I thought, here it comes, you know. And because this is what we've documented. We have to put this together. But what we've documented is this west to east progression.

And right now, that's ongoing. You know, it's probably heading up to Labrador right now. And so that was in the middle of the south coast of Newfoundland. But then in early June, it was, you know, Eddie. Bill's talking about Eddie White. Months before in June 2022, Eddie was out fishing off. Cape St. Mary's. A fisherman, and a couple of other fishermen, they were just out fishing.

And they said, they found four dead gannets on the water. And, you know, once in a while you might find a dead gannet, gets stuck in a herring net, and it dies or drowns. But they said, this is really unusual. We see four dead gannets. So Eddie collected two of them. And then I got the immature bird. There was an immature bird.

Anyway, I got that immature Gannett from Eddie, and then I turned it over to Canadian Wildlife Service, and they tested it, and it tested positive for the influenza. So that was frightening, because that was the fuse for Cape St. Mary's, which is a massive Gannock colony in the world. As a matter of fact, everybody was in anticipation. I just hope it doesn't get here because we knew the GAN. And in Europe, the largest Gannock colony in the world on Bass Rocks was decimated. You know, I mean, maybe half of the birds died. And we're talking tens of thousands of birds. And so we were just hoping, oh, let's just hope and pray.

It doesn't get to Cape St. Mary's. And that was the first indication. Eddie picked up those birds. I said, we don't like see these dead. So it wasn't like we weren't waiting for it. It wasn't like we did know it might be coming. But we were just hoping it wouldn't. And just like COVID, I think most people's expectation is this isn't going to go away.

We don't know what's going to happen next summer. Could they be decimated? Could Avian flu kill species? Emotionally, how's this being for you as a scientist for 50 years studying, see birds and the impact to see a greater devastation to birds than oil? What's been going through your mind even philosophically, I guess, about what you're seeing happening? You know, I mean, the most unusual thing is, I mean, I've seen so, I've gotten immune to. it to tell you the honest truth. You know, in the past, we always got immune to the oiled birds because you kind of had to shut it down and just deal with it. The hard ones are the individuals,

you know, it's like the one bird on the beach that's just suffering and you interact with it and you, and those are tough. But dealing with the dead ones, you know, I mean, I think I've, you know, I think I really have an immunity to it. I just can't be, you know, whining and pining over all these. You know, I mean, I'm really concerned about it, but in the process of just really trying to understand it and document it, I'm really immune to the death, and not to the devastation, but to the death. The devastation will be the big question, you know. But the emotional impacts, it's with, you know, and I've handled a few, and they haven't all been bad to tell you the truth. I think it might have been the last bird I captured. It was in a forest and we got a

great catch on it. You know, it just walked into a net for me and I picked it up. And it was so weak. And what I told you, it's eye wasn't penetrating. And it was so weak. Had a bit of, you know, life. But, you know, I just knew it was a sick bird. I tested it. So I don't have the result of that yet. but I can't imagine it wasn't sick. But anyway, we caught it in that, and we just brought it over to the cliff. And the options were, well, you know, maybe this bird is just going to plummet right down

and die on the rocks and just smash because this bird wasn't strong. So that was a real option. We only have one option. This bird's going to die, and we can give it a second chance to get out in the ocean, and maybe some miracle would happen. And to do that, we have to take the risk that maybe it's just going to fall down

and smash its head on the rocks. But the decision is, like, let's just give the bird the option. So we put it on the edge of the cliff, and I just gave it a little bit of a nudge. And the most amazing thing was it just opened its wings. And it must have flown for half a kilometer. It didn't crash on the rocks. And it ended up in the middle of the bay. And we could see it.

And it's probably going to die. But, you know, it didn't die in the woods. Right. So, but. It died in the water. Well, died in, yeah, that's right. It died in the ocean, you know. And that's a good place to die.

Yeah. I mean, why die in the woods? when you shouldn't be there. So to me, that was a resolution. We resolved its death, you know, and good. Get out there. Die and die where you should die, you know. So, and, you know, so that was great.

Is the emotion bill in part that you're feeling right now and there's tears in your eyes and I feel that impact and I can see the birds because they're magnificent? Is the emotion in part because this bird is so innocent? this bird had nothing to do with its death except for man's greed perhaps and selfishness? I mean, where is the emotion from? Well, I actually think, yeah,

I mean, we go there all the time and we have to, but, you know, to me, this was a more basic question. This was a question about life and death, and it didn't matter who was responsible. It didn't matter what was responsible. We were just on the cusp of life and death. And sometimes in your own life, you will sooner or later if you haven't experienced that.

I couldn't help thinking when Bill was talking about that dying Gannett and giving it one last flight of Bill's heart attack a few years back and that he too is experiencing the wonder of a second chance. This bird's dying. Let's have some dignity about this whole thing. And so to give the bird the option, that's, you know that's really all we did and that's what i you know that's kind of what i always want to do you know that's probably what you want for yourself you just want an option if it crashes on the rock

and smashes its head it's dead it was probably going to die anyway so let's not be romantic about it it died to smash its head and we helped it do that but maybe maybe it's just a second chance and it's a chance. So it's a 50-50. So you're talking about emotion and I'm, you know, I'm acting emotionally. It was elating. You know, it was like everybody probably just screamed with joy when that bird spread its wings and just took off, right? And so good for you. And, you know, go out there and die a good death. You didn't die in the woods where you didn't really want to be, you know, so. And you had a last flight because they're so spectacular again. They have to jolly. There are these, You know, white birds with a yellow head and they have it, the wingtips are black, and they just, when they expand those wings, they're just glorious.

They're just glorious to watch. Absolutely. You're listening to The Birdman Adventures with Bill Montavecchi, first aired in 2023. This is Ideas. I'm Nala Ayyad. Almost 3,000 people were killed in the 9-11 terrorist attacks. How did some of their remains end up in the world's largest landfell? They treated my son like garbage. So while the people who killed my son, I have certainly an animosity for them. I have a huge animosity for the people who were running New York. On the latest episode of Revisionist History, the story of a battle over what some see as a pile of dust and others see as the remains of the dead.

Listen to Revisionous History wherever you get your podcasts. On day one of their adventures, after a three-hour drive in thick fog and mist, Bill Montavecchi and Ideas producer Mary Link turned on to the road to Cape St. Mary's world-famous seabird colonies. Just starting the 13-kilometer drive on the road to Cape St. Mary's Ecological Reserve, we have a northerly wind, which at Cape St. Mary's, is a good wind because it blows the fog and the mist away from the coast. So we should today get a really good look at the Gannets, and we'll also be able to see birds that died from the avian influenza. And, you know, that'll be another sighting, a depressing one,

but one that we're trying to keep track of. Do you remember the first time you saw Cape St. Mary's? I probably do. I'd have to think back. I know my first impression was I looked over at the stack, and it was just all white. This would have been in the summer in June or July. And when you say Stack, what do you mean by that?

Yeah, I looked over at the Gannett Colony on Bird Rock. It's a huge cliff that sticks out from the coast. And it's just covered with Gannets. And when I first saw that, I just thought, oh, that looks like snow. I just couldn't believe it was just birds covering this massive rock that's about 300 meters high. and just pure white. And I knew it wasn't snow, but it was just hard to fathom. I'd never seen anything like it.

I'd been in other bird colonies before. And, you know, it's been that way ever since, actually, every time. It is one of the most beautiful colonies. Bill and I arrive at Cape St. Mary's, and it is magnificent. The fog is indeed lifted, and the sky is a glorious blue. There's an unusually warm post-hurricane wind. albeit it's wild. The wind, man.

I think it's probably about 60 kilometers an hour in that ballpark, northwesternly. So blowing the junky fog and stuff away from the coast, and it's nice and clear. Good day for the birds, for sure. They like wind. They like wind? Of course. Yes, well, he should fly.

Yeah, exactly. We walk over to the Interpretation Center. How come it says closed? It's just closed. Oh, yeah, we're going to have to get permission. to go out. Because of the high winds today, the building and the long, winding trails down to the edge of the cliffs have been closed to the public. We meet two local residents who work there as guides. So, this is Mary Link. She works at CBC. This is Edna White.

Hi. Hi, Edna. And Loretta? She's all the other interpreter here. Hi, Loretta. What do you think about Bill? Oh, he's fantastic. And we're going to walk over. The trail's actually closed, but we're going to, we'll be very cautious and I walk over and stay away from the cliff. So you don't blow over. No, it's good. It's good. I'm trying to kind of being facetious,

but, you know, I would never, with students or myself, we wouldn't do anything. How much insurance do you have? I don't know. I should maybe give my husband a call and tell him about my insurance. No, no, let's go. All right. Okay.

We can pop out that way. We'll be careful. Okay, thank you. Take care. Where's the first aid kit? It's way down there. It's way down there. Wow.

Coming across the bird colony now, just walking up to it. It's quite spectacular. Oh my goodness, it's beautiful. Just walking up now into the colony, right on the cliff. And these really quite elegant birds flying all over the place, and the others. sitting. You can see some carcasses out there,

kind of marbled and trampled on. The dark brown birds are the young of the year, and they're really obvious. They're quite different from the white, mature parents that are out there. In fact, what happens are those little brown, well, they're not little, they're as big as the adults.

Those brown birds are moving around because they're objective. They're getting ready to leave, but for them to leave, they can't leave those birds in the middle of the plateau there, cannot actually leave from there. They have to get to a cliff edge where they can get an updraft and realize they've never flown in their lives. So at some point, they just make a decision to go. They're just getting anxious and itchy and, you know, there's something telling them, you know, it's time to go. And actually, the other interesting thing you can see there, there's a lot. of pairs of adults with no young, which means probably their young have already left.

And when that happens, you'll see a couple of pairs there. What happens is after the young leave, the parents start, you know, they actually start courting again and they start preening again. It's like junior went off to college, and the parents now realize why they're together. And they start this courtship, which is probably incredibly important for next year. year because those birds are monogamous. They're going to leave. They're going to go to thousands of kilometers from here. They're going to go to different places. And so it's really good that they sort of cement and affirm those bonds because the next time, you know, in a couple of weeks,

the next time they're going to see their mate is not for about six months and it's going to be right at that exact same nest site when they recouple. Yeah. And so we're, like it's an oat crop. Like it's, right now we're seeing on the edge of this cliff. And so right between us, there's this rock jutting up from the water that the majority of the colonies seem to be on. That's right. Well, you know, right here, I can see what result of the avian flu. Do you see how thin it is on this side to the right and not so much on the other side? And if you look really carefully, like that chick is just on top of a dead body, which, I mean, could be one of its parents or its neighbors.

There's dead bodies just in the, you know, adults. You know, I mean, I can see about 10. And if you really look, they're just trampled in. So it looks like the avian influenza really hit this side of the stack. But, you know, for some reason, the birds on the other side, you know, it didn't seem to spread as much. But, you know, that's the consequence of that flu. And again, they've had this difficult. time of having really warm water to cope with and to try and get fish under these conditions.

Yeah, there's a lot, yeah, there's a lot going on. Can you see that pair right there, Mary? Yeah. Well, and the fact of the matter is the one on the left is probably the female. At the end of the season, the female's heads fade much more quickly than the males. And if you look at those two birds, the bird on the right, the head is actually quite gold. and the bird on the left, the head's really much whiter. And so that's something that happens, you know,

because the male gets another boost of testosterone at the end of the summer. The female, I don't think she's getting any more estrogen or whatever. But her feathers are fading in the crown and his arms. So, I mean, but otherwise, you can't tell them apart. You know, they're monogamous, but we also say that they're, you know, sexually monomorphic. So with almost all seabirds, you know, puffins, Gannets, kitty wakes, herringos, it's almost impossible to tell males from females. And if you look at them long enough, sometimes you can pick up on behavior, or in this case,

a little bit of a faded plumage in the female. But otherwise, it's very interesting because, and it's interesting for a number of reasons, but when you can't tell the sexes apart, those tend to be the species that share. among sea birds, at least, that share parental care. Wow. And when you can't, you know, so if you think of a mallard duck, the male's real spicy and spruce up, well, he doesn't do much of anything.

The female incubates the egg, she cares for the chicks. You know, and he might march around and, you know, keep a predator away, you know, from the nest or whatever. But basically all the work goes to the female, the child, the kid care, the offspring. care. But in species like these, when the two sexes look alike, they share, and they share everything, they both incubate the egg, they both feed the young. And in this case, with the Gannet, neither parent goes to sea. That's why they're still parents they're courting.

The chick, at 13 weeks of age, which some of these birds are 12 or 13 weeks of age, they simply go to the edge of the cliff and make a decision. They've never flasked. A leap of faith? It's absolutely a leap of faith. It's a right of passage, and you get one try. And if you do it right, you could sail out there like two or three kilometers. But if you do it wrong, you can hit the rocks below. You could hit the cliff on the way down.

So sometimes they die on their first flight? Some, you know, they've got to get it right. And you can and you cannot. I saw one bird. It took off fine, but then it ended up hitting the water sideways. and its wing just snapped, you know. So it's, and there's a pair copulating right there. So there's a...

Oh, yeah. Yeah, see, and again, that kicks in at the end of the year. But why are they doing it now? What? Well, why are they doing... So that, like, when do they... You know what that is? That's clearly bonding, right?

That's funny. There's no purpose in what they're doing right now. Well, there is. They're probably having a good time for one. I know. Okay, they're having a good time. All right. No, but besides that, there's probably a lot of...

lot of purpose. They really are cementing their relationship and their bond. And they're, you know, they're copulating there. I'm going to see you here in six months. I think all those things are really important. At the height of the season when all the birds are here, how many birds are here and who's here? The estimates around, I think it's in the order of 15,000 pairs, which puts you at 30,000 birds, but then there's a lot of non-breeders. So, you know, there's probably 40,000 Gannets here over the course of the summer. I mean,

it's a lot of... And then what else is... There's MERS, you know, at least 10,000 pairs of MERS, so 20, probably more, but at least 20,000 MERS that are on the cliff. And we can't see them now. All that white wash over there on that cliff face, those are at Kitiwakes

and MERS nest in a lot. Wow, over there. And so they've all gone, right? Yeah. And, yeah, so What goes through your mind? It's so, so beautiful here. It feels otherworldly in many ways. I mean, I just always think that, you know, there's just something, and, you know, there's some kind of resilience in the natural world here

that, you know, you get a little window to watch it. You just realize there's something going on here besides us. Seabirds come to land to mate. When do they go back to land? Yeah, well, they'll probably come back in April, But do they ever go to somewhere else and go to land? Is what? Like, this is a stupid question.

One of my many... No, no, but that's a good question. But they're here on land, these seabirds who often live and swim on the ocean and fly in the ocean. They come here to mate and then they take off to a warmer climate, be it off Africa or down to Gulf of Mexico. Do they go on land again after they leave here? No, no, that's a great question. That is a great question. And it's hard to not...

See, we only... When biologists started studying seabirds, this is all they studied. They studied birds on land. But in fact, in fact, they live most of their lives at sea. In fact, being on land is relatively alien for them. And the only reason they're there is because they have to come here to, you know, lay an egg and build a nest and raise their young. They can't do that in the ocean.

These are marine birds. And essentially, they spend almost all of their lives in the ocean. So what changed in biology? what had happened in the 1990s, what changed radically. You know, how did people study birds at sea? Well, they could go out in a boat and look for them. They could put a bird band on and hope somebody might find it at sea. But there weren't many things you could do. But then in the 1990s, all of a sudden, we had these GPS devices and tracking devices and diving devices. That's the driving research tool right now. It's tracking.

birds? Where do they go? Where do they go to feed when they're breeding? And then where do they go when they leave here and go off for the non-breeding season? So those questions are the most compelling questions. And the technology changed what biologists did from studying seabirds on land to studying seabirds on sea. So like how do you get a bird here? I mean, A, you can't get over to that rock. No, that's right. That rock is their rock. You've never been over there. That's right. And then And the ones that are on the cliff on the... That's another good question, yeah. Yeah, and the other ones who are on the cliff on the other side.

So some of the birds are right on the land on the cliff. But they're right on the cliff and they're on the rocks, like, tilting down to that huge dangerous drop for us humans. How do you get a hold of them? How do you catch them? Well, you know, I brought the gear to show you. And to me, this is... It might be the most, you know, fantastic interaction I actually have with birds.

I have to catch them. and we have an extended, you know, it's essentially a fishing pole, but it telescopes out to about 15 or 20 feet, has a little noose on the end of it, and you work with the bird to get the noose around its neck, and then you pull it, and you pull the bird in. Now, those birds are pretty tough, but they know you're trying to catch it.

Why I find it so fascinating is the capture is essentially, it's not a rodeo, you know, and some people take it that way, And that's not the right way to take it. The bird's stress. The biologist is stressed. So most everybody gets it now, but it's actually in negotiation. And the reason, the reason you catch the bird is because it's such a good parent. It doesn't want to leave its chick.

And it knows that you're trying to catch it. It's well aware of that, but it doesn't want to leave its chick. And so you just have to be very gentle. and with that noose, you know, maybe lay it on the bird's side, and then maybe just a little bit at a time, and the bird will look at it like it's a string more than a threat, and just work it up, you know, maybe lean it on its neck, and then maybe be able to roll it over the head and beak,

and then pull the bird in. Like some of the ones we're looking over here on this oak crop, this rock climbing up over the ocean. How far is it from us? It's about what? How many feet? From the edge of this cleft to the oak crop is what, you think? The one right in front of this?

Yes, yeah. I don't know. What is that? maybe 60 feet. I mean, it's like we're sitting in a Gannock colony, and they don't care because they know, you know, I mean, a fox could be sitting here, and they wouldn't care because they actually have that security.

Actually, Mary, just looking over at the land, I just see it, look up above. See, there's another dead Gannet right on the very top of that wall, just laying on the rocks above where the birds are. You can see that carcass up there. There's just really a lot of them around. which is really disturbing. We would never see this.

There's tens of dead Gannis out there, and that doesn't, most of the ones we find are on the beaches are in the water, so it's wreaked havoc. And the other thing that happens, you know, we were talking about the parental care. For seabirds, you have to have two parents to raise a chick. So every time, you know, a parent dies,

one parent cannot get that chick. you know, can't raise it. So every time one parent dies of a pair, the chick is going to die. So look, lots of places over there where we see lots of carcasses. We don't see any chicks. And so my guess is they're buried in the mud or something. How many birds do you think have died from the avian flu here? Well, you know, we know there's thousands.

And when you say there's thousands and you talk about two sides of the ocean, I mean, it's got to be tens of thousands of birds. There's no question. There's a colony in front. France that's fairly close to Cape St. Mary's in terms of latitude, and it's not doing very well either. And Cape St. Mary's hasn't been doing very well. So for 50 years you've been coming here, and these seabirds, these gannets and the other birds, the other birds, the mures, the kitty wigs. It's the most beautiful gull. It's the most beautiful gull. It's a delicate little gull.

And I don't see a one here. I wish we did because they're just fantastic. But I want to ask why for 50 years have they fascinated you and why to the state do they fascinate you? You know, I'm not sure. I mean, I'm not sure. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a vet, right, when I was really young. And I think if you get the privilege of then seeing animals besides pets, you know, real animals, wild animals and real environments,

it just captures you. One of my students now, Tori, wasn't sure what her major would be, Anyway, she was in one of my classes, and we got a lot of these storm patrols at the fish plant and Bata Bird, and I brought them in because we couldn't release them. The wind was too strong. So I brought them into the lab just so people could one, you know, ban those birds, but also, you know, have the experience of handling them. And I remember Tori saying as soon as I touched it, I knew what I wanted to do. I also had the privilege of holding the storm petrol. My little darling. It's okay, it's okay, you're okay.

The small seabird had just taken flight for the first time in its life from Bacaloo Island, home to the largest leeches storm petal colony in the world. It's just off the coast from the fishing community of Bay DeVird, which is a six-hour drive away from Cape St. Mary's on the opposite side of the Avalon Peninsula, where Bill and I have come to conduct an overnight experiment, where this young seabird just crashed into a brightly lit fish plant. Day two of my adventures with Bill Montavecchi. So we started with the largest seabird in North Atlantic,

which is a gannot, and now we're going to a smaller guy. They're not too much bigger than the robin, but they're like little albatrosses. They're most fantastic animals. They forage out on the edge of the Grand Banks. There's millions of them, but in the last 30 years, There's 3 million of them missing, and that's 3 million out of about 8 million.

So we're talking about maybe 40% of their population. It's coincident. A key problem is light pollution, such as unnecessarily brightly lit fishing boats, oil rigs, or buildings along the coastline. In this case, the blinding nightlights of the Quinlan Brothers fish plant in Beta Verde, one of the largest fish plants in Canada, where tens of thousands of storm petrels have been crashing during the night into the plant for years, many does. dying. Bill has been conducting an experiment with the students and some local residents on the impact of the lights on the storm petrels. When they're turned off, it's rare for a bird to crash into the fish plant, but when the lights are on, Bill has counted more than a thousand in a single night.

Tonight for the experiment, the lights are on. It's 7 p.m. and freezing note. Bill and iron his truck on the wharf in front of the fish plant. We're getting ready to count the number of storm petrels who come crashing into the wall, trying to, to get to the stunned birds before the seagull swoop down and kill them. It's nearing the end of the season, so there are less storm petrels. But it's also the time small fledglings are leaving the nest for the first time, attempting to migrate thousands of miles away, only to be distracted by the fish plants glaring lights. The evening starts off slow, but that soon changes.

Well, the gull just jumped in the back behind the concrete. I don't think there's a bird there, but there's two gulls. at that concrete place there. Keep an eye on him. He obviously saw something. Wait a minute. Does he get something in his way? He does?

The gull flies up with the young storm petrol in his speak. Bill and I are running around, waving our arms, trying to get it to drop it. It's over there. No, he still has it. It's over there. This goes on for what feels like ten minutes, racing up and down the wharf.

Eventually, we freak out the gull enough that it drops it. Storm Petrol's dead. Oh, is he really dead? Yeah. Oh, they're so incredible. So this little guy, you still warm. Oh, the poor guy. We didn't save the bird, and we could have saved the bird.

But we tried, yeah, we tried. But we can do better. And we do do better as more and more young Storm Petrels come crashing into the fish plant. The rest of the night, it was relentless. It's okay. He's feisty. I don't want to hurt him.

You didn't see the bird. You just saw the gall. I saw the gall. I saw the gall, and then I saw the bird. Yeah, you blitzed down here. That was terrific. Number six. Yeah, he hit the wall actually quite hard,

but these are robust little birds. He seems fine. He's just in the bag. Now we give him a little time to recuperate, and we'll make a note that we got him at 10, 10-10, and we'll now get a wait. So these guys, this little one that I have that I think is the smallest one tonight, is a fledgling.

It just left its nest for the first time. But it's not returned to its nest. That's its plan not to return. When it leaves, its motivation really is to go to sea. A lot of them is transatlantic migration, you know, over to Spain, Portugal, down the African coast, some birds down to Namibia. in South Africa. So this little guy or girl that I have right now,

she was starting to go out in the ocean and the light pulled her back in? Yeah, it definitely seems to be what happened. And whether it was a pull, I keep trying to figure out, I keep trying to wrap my head around what's going on. Was it a pole? Was it a disorientation?

And when I watch these birds flying around, a lot of these birds fly rather around, radically, they actually don't fly into the lights. You know, the lights seem to attract them, but they just whack into the wall. So it seems like it's kind of a disorientation. The light disorients them. And that's the danger here. They just whack into a wall.

If there's no wall, then they get stuck in a parking lot or in the woods somewhere where they're stranded and they just can't take off very well and they can get preyed on and all those things. So, but one thought is that, well, once they're in that sphere of light, there's an inhibition about flying into the dark. And that seems kind of strange to think about, because these are nocturnal birds. But maybe once they're in light, it's maybe more difficult for them to fly into darkness. Oh, there's a storm pectoral. Okay.

All right. Where? Go, wait, go. Oh, okay. Just saved another storm petrol from a gull. Oh, there's another one. Oh, did he die? No, he's okay.

Oh, another one! Okay, now three. Okay, it's picking up. Okay, I'm just running around here like a crazy person. I'm going to put you in my pocket and zip you up. Okay, well, I've just, my taper carton fell down. I've got three birds. One of my pocket.

One each hand. 1.26 a.m. What time's it now, Bill? It's 3 a.m. We can hope and pray. We don't see any by four. But on... Oh, there's another bird.

Okay, we're out of here. I didn't see it. At the end of the night, the bird stopped coming. And I was finally able to join Bill and walk around the unlit back harbor behind the fish plant where he'd been releasing them all night long. We're together we would release the last storm petrol. It's about 4 o'clock in the morning. You can just see a bit, a bit of light on the horizon. We captured 39.

Two of those died. One from a gull, one from a neck fracture, hitting the wall of the wall of the wall. the fish plant and 37 we released which had we not done that I think if you came two weeks from now you just see the remnants of the carcasses like we saw when we first got here and we counted 50 so um so anyway that's good but the other thing is for our experiment we also have you know more evidence uh when the lights are on we got 39 birds our last half our last half last week the lights were off and we had zero birds so so we're walking out to the back end this is where we release the last guy so we can hope um all right i'll take your bag same routine

you're model the bag here he is i'm just going to hold his legs all right let's hope this little robust. I have his two legs. He's ready. Okay, okay. Oh, God. All right, he's pissed. So good.

I love it when they're aggressive like that. He's angry. Okay, I'm going to let you go. Look at it. This bird is great. He's a tough one. I'm going to hold him loosely in my cupped hands

and sort of raise my arms up and down. And on this toss, I'm going to throw him as high and as far out as I can. All right, go. Whoa. He did it.

A little bit of a more casual takeoff, but he hooked out over the sea, so good. Second chance. Okay, let's go to bed. Oh, man. Okay, we saved some birds. You were listening to The Birdman,

Adventures with Bill Montavecchi, by Ideas Produce. producer Mary Link. In light of Bill's study, the Quinlan Brothers fish plant in Bay DeVird, Newfoundland, have turned off their lights for good in order to save these threatened storm petrels. This documentary first aired in early 2023. Bill Montevichie, whose work drew international acclaim, passed away in July 26 at the age of 80. Technical production, Danielle Duval and Pat Martin. Greg Kelly is the executive producer of ideas, and I'm Nala Ayyed.