I’ve been slopped around all night in my bunk and woke to a 3am alarm to take watch til dawn. Seasickness has me grumbling and dry-throated (thanks Scopoderm), but as the first light starts to lift up from the horizon, I have a steaming black coffee in one hand and the world starts to seem a bit less awful. The sea glosses up from inky to pearly, wind-riffled and swelly. We’re out off North Cape looking for a particular tiny seabird, but there’s nothing we can do til the wind drops and the chop eases. In the dawn, seabird silhouettes cut through the air, circling the boat at a distance before disappearing. To get an idea of who’s in the neighbourhood, this particular patch of sea, we need something enticing. Salmon berley does the trick, dropped over the side in a cage, slowly defrosting and releasing a good fishy oil to tempt passing Procellariiforms (that’s petrels).

We get a good selection, and start an eBird list. It’s difficult not to accidentally re-count the throng of takoketai (Black petrels/taiko) that skim along just behind, pattering and dropping to the surface to pick up tidbits. The toroa (albatrosses), Antipodeans, Southern Royals, stay well back to begin with but ease closer and closer as the day begins.

The sun rises and rich gold light flares across the sea. Suddenly dark wings are aflame with orange, stark against shadowed feathers. My cup of coffee is forgotten, half-drunk and cold. The wind still needs to drop significantly before we can start our work – catching New Zealand storm petrels. But it’s not a bad start to the day.