The Fiji Petrel is one of the world’s most elusive birds. In April 1984, nearly 130 years after it was first discovered, it made a brief but dramatic comeback, emerging from the darkness to hit Dick Watling on the head.

Pictured, the Takalai Gau (Paramount Chief of Gau) Ratu Marika Lewanavanua releasing a Fiji Petrel in front of Sawaieke villagers on Gau Island on May 1 1984. The first confirmed Fiji Petrel since the type specimen was collected at the same location in 1855 (more petrel photos below).

Elusive
Even though it’s featured on banknotes, stamps, and even in the logo of a now-defunct airline, the Fiji Petrel, one of the world most elusive birds, has actually been spotted only a few times.

When he visited the Fijian island of Gau in October 1855, TM Rayner, a Medical Officer onboard the British Royal Navy survey ship HMS Herald was given a carcass of a black seabird by the local residents.

New species
Although the specimen was later identified at the British Museum as a new species, the small, dark seabird wasn't seen since. So Dick Watling, a naturalist from Fiji’s capital Suva set himself the mission of finding the mysterious bird.

Teaming up with one of the island’s chiefs, he built up a picture of the Fuji Petrel using any bits of information and local knowledge he could find. One of these was a lullaby mentioning a bird by the name of Kacau that departs from the island and flies far out to sea.

Spotlighting
Watling also knew that petrels are very responsive to lights in bad weather. So one stormy night in April 1984 he went up one of Gau’s high points for spotlighting, as he had done a number of times before.

"And something instead of higher up came from down below, and I just remember feeling something almost, ducking, and its wing grazed my head as it went through past the light, and tumbled into a bundle in the base of the bush behind me," says Watling. "And there sitting was an all-black small petrel".

Eureka moment
Since that Eureka-like moment, a total of seventeen Fiji Petrels have been sighted in the villages around the island. Many crash into roofs, for reasons that are still unclear. But, after a couple of unsuccessful attempts, the first time that the bird was spotted at sea, its natural habitat, was during an international pelagic expedition in May 2009.

"Seeing them after all these years out at sea was for me something that is very difficult to describe how nice it was," Watling described that encounter.

Endangered
Though, endemic to Fiji’s island of Gau, the Fiji Petrel is now considered critically endangered. The key to its conservation, says Watling, is locating the Petrel's nesting burrows. And with numbers estimated at no more than 100 individuals, feral pigs, rats and cats make for a serious threat to the survival of the enigmatic Fiji Petrel.

Taken from Goodbye by Earth Beat.

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More from Fijian NGO NatureFiji-MareqetiViti - A grounded Fiji Petrel successfully released.

Videos - BirdLife International - Search for the Fiji Petrel.

Watch more Fiji Petrel videos at NatureFiji-MareqetiViti's YouTube channel.