The Mediterranean storm petrel (Hydrobates pelagicus melitensis) is a very small (~28 g), highly secretive seabird. It spends most of its life offshore, only coming to land during the breeding season at night. As a result, very little is known about its behaviour and habits. In common with other Procellariiformes, storm petrel pairs share parental duties to raise a single chick each breeding attempt. In 2019, we started a project in collaboration with Parco Regionale di Porto Conte (Sardinia, Italy) to unravel the foraging and movement ecology of this elusive species, using a combination of biologgers and molecular techniques, ultimately to assess the exposure and the potential resilience of this species to anthropogenic pressures.
Study site
Our study colony in Capo Caccia (northern Sardinia), where we work since 2019, hosts ca. 400 breeding.