That reminds me of a tale from a cruise we took last November on the
Holland-America ship, M/S Veendam. The ship's crew had been carefully
briefed that if any birds came aboard, to contact us. We were of course
expecting sea-birds, which sometimes come aboard in bad weather or attracted
by the ship's lights at night. Well, one morning we were all at the bow
sea-watching and the 2nd Officer came forward and said "we have a bird on
board but it's quite a walk to see it." Barry volunteered, and was led up
several sets of metal ladders, across catwalks, to a high deck near the
ship's funnel. There, instead of the expected petrel or shearwater was a
very active & very annoyed SORA, which gave him and the officer a dirty look
and promptly ran away to an inaccessible area. There was no way the two of
them could corral the bird so they decided to leave it alone and hope it
left the next night. (Which it did). This was when the ship was about 50
miles off the coast of Guatemala.

So they get around!

Gail Mackiernan
Colesville, MD