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Throwing up gives
seabirds a fast takeoff

Last week, I wrote about a storm here in Palmyra during which a black noddy crashed into the cockpit of my sailboat and threw up. A reader, whose mother sends her my columns, e-mailed, "I look forward to hearing about your adventures. What on earth is a black noddy?"

Before I answer Carol's good question, let me say that a red-footed booby also threw up in my cockpit. When threatened, seabirds vomit to lighten their bodies for a faster getaway.

Like the noddy, two red-footed booby birds also got confused by the wind, rain and lights and landed on the boat. One sat dazed on the aft deck, but the other thrashed around in the cockpit, contributing to the evening's pandemonium.

Alex gave a helping hand to the mixed-up seabirds, and off they flew into the sideways rain.

I didn't know the cockpit booby had left its dinner until a day after I'd scrubbed the noddy's putrid fish remains from beneath my slatted teak floorboards.

When the rotting fish smell lingered, I sniffed my way around the cockpit and found a 6-inch-long, half-digested flying fish wedged in the mainsail's traveler track. When I tried to pick it up, it burst open.

The noddy's little gift turned out to be the least of my cleanup chores.

But back to black noddies, which are seabirds as delicate and graceful as their close cousins the fairy terns, only a little bigger and all black.

Fairy terns, also called white terns, stand 10 to 12 inches tall; black noddies, 14 inches tall.

Hawaii hosts three terns and three noddies (same seabird family) all named for their color. The terns are white, gray-backed and sooty; the noddies are blue, brown and black.

Noddies get their name from nodding. This behavior between adults looks like chivalrous bowing. "So honored to meet you," one seems to say, dipping like knight to queen.

"The pleasure is mine," the other nods back.

These courtly birds can be quite bold when threatened. On Hawaii's Tern Island, I once stepped too close to a brown noddy's chick, and the parent burst up and pecked me on the forehead.

The next time, that same bird hit my chest. These attacks didn't injure me but they did the trick. After that I gave the area a wide berth.

Some terns and noddies nest on Hawaii's offshore islets; others nest only in the Northwest Chain. This remoteness makes them hard to spot in the main islands.

Black and brown noddies are also hard to spot in Palmyra. These seabirds are common here but nest high in towering trees.

The fairy terns, however, are impossible not to see. They hover over our heads in the forests like little guardian angels.

Sooty terns, which fly and call 24 hours a day, are also quite visible -- and audible. Here in Palmyra's lagoon, I fall asleep each night to the songs of the sooties. Some people wouldn't call these raucous calls a song, but any sound of seabirds is music to my ears.

Their fetid fish are another story. Those they could keep to themselves.