The study of seabirds takes a team of researchers to the loneliest house in the world

While puffins are practically the symbol of Vestmannaeyjar, petrels (a small species of sea birds in the same family as the larger albatross) are much more enigmatic.  

Stephen Hurling, a PhD student in seabird conservation at Landbúnaðarháskóli Íslands (the Agricultural University of Iceland), is conducting doctoral research to learn more about the population, distribution and diet of three species breeding in Iceland: the European Storm Petrel, the Leach’s Storm Petrel and the Manx Shearwater. But here’s the rub: not only are they nocturnal, they also spend all but three months of the year at sea. And when they do come to land to breed during summer, they make their home on isolated islands like Elliðaey and other uninhabited islands in Vestmannaeyjar that are only accessible by boat when ocean swells are below two metres.  

Elliðaey is often deceptively referred to online as “Björk Island,” a mysterious place that is home to the so-called Loneliest House in the World. Having been there, I have to say that the house is anything but lonely — at least when occupied by a group of biologists, puffin hunters, shepherds, or some combination of the three, lubricating their unlikely cohabitation with generous amounts of alcohol. And I definitely didn’t see Björk there. 

I had been warned about the difficulty of getting there, yet I still expected a larger boat to ferry my fellow island-hoppers and I. The seven of us, eight including the captain, squeezed onto a small zodiac with everything we would need for a 22-hour stay, including food, water, clothes and a variety of equipment. After a bumpy and wet ride, getting onto the island was a challenge — one had to jump from the moving boat onto a slippery rock, grab a rope that had been tied onto the cliff and then hike up the rocks with our equipment before embarking on the brief hike to the “lonely” lodge. Little did I know, the uneven ground beneath my feet, covered as it was by grassy tussocks, was littered with puffin and petrel burrows. 

Species under threat 

Stephen told me that all three species he is studying are red listed in Iceland. The Leach’s Storm Petrel has also been globally red listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature since 2016 on account of their population dropping approximately 50% over the last 30 years at key colonies in Canada (home to more than 90% of the Atlantic population) and by 80% in the U.K. since 2000, but no one knows why.  

The last population survey of these species in Iceland happened in 1991 or 1992, even though such a census should be conducted every 15 years. And so Stephen, who fell in love with seabirds because they move so well between land, sky and sea, decided to focus his studies on a population survey of petrels in Vestmannaeyjar.  

Just a few years earlier, he had quit his university job teaching English in Japan after 16 years to help take care of his parents in the U.K., but turned the situation into a chance for further study, following his dream of working with seabirds. It was not until that night on the island that I began to understand why. 

 At night, when much of a petrel researcher’s work is carried out, hordes of petrels compete to make themselves heard. Stephen described the Leach’s call as a demonic cackle, while the Manx Shearwater’s call is slightly less alarming, resembling an “angry donkey” in the words of one local.  

Soundtrack notwithstanding, the romance of the island is undeniable at night. No volcano was visible when I was on Elliðaey, but Stephen said his favourite experience was seeing the distant glow of an eruption on the Reykjanes Peninsula while holding one of the elusive petrels in hand. Despite describing himself as not particularly adventurous, Stephen traded the relatively comfortable life of a language teacher for exactly that experience— reluctantly accepting the risks that come with working in less than secure conditions on the isolated islands. 

Pulling an all-nighter 

After arriving on the island, we spent most of our time preparing and hoping that the wind (which had to be less than 10 m/s) would die down. Once night arrived and the birds with it, we split into two teams, setting up mist nets to capture the creatures. The first catch for the other team was one of the assistants who lost their footing on the side of the steep hill, while my team was much more fortunate to be in a divot beside an embankment.  

From around 10 p.m. to 5 a.m., we waited in darkness for the sound of birds hitting the nets. We then quickly grabbed them to either put a numbered ID ring on their leg, record the number from already ringed birds, or — as happened on one very lucky occasion — collect a tracking device from the leg of a bird that showed where it had travelled over the past year. The other team’s task was more complicated and time consuming: taking feather and faecal samples to get a better understanding of the birds’ diet, and taking blood samples to compare between male and female birds. 

Exhausted, but enchanted 

A European Storm Petrel weighs only about 25 grams and is very easy to hold in one hand, but as a defence mechanism, they vomit almost instantly after hitting the net. After a night spent processing around 60 birds until bleary-eyed and vomit-covered, we stumbled back into the lodge for a couple hours of sleep before leaving the island.  

Despite my exhaustion, I felt fortunate. After all, few people ever catch a glimpse of nocturnal petrels either here in Iceland or during their yearly migration to the south coast of Africa.  

It is only through this unique experience enabled by Stephen, who will now be analysing the data and writing up his dissertation, did I learn about and grow enchanted by some of the smallest seabirds in the Atlantic, which I may never see again.