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An island off the coast
of south-east Alaska.

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It's called St Lazaria, after
a saint of the Russian Orthodox
Church. Alaska was once Russian.

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It's quite small, only 1,000 metres
from end to end. Its rocky shores
make it difficult to land on.

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No people live here,
but in summer it's home to more
than half-a-million birds.

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Spring comes late to Alaska,

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and it's May before tufted puffins
come ashore to lay their eggs.

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Some 11,000 of these punk-plumed
puffins breed on St Lazaria.

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Like our own Atlantic puffin,

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these Pacific puffins nest
in burrows, on the grassy slopes
above the cliffs.

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In Britain, puffins sometimes use
rabbit holes. There are no rabbits
here so they dig their own burrows.

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The same holes are used
year after year.

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One of the first tasks of the newly
arrived pairs is to collect
material for the simple nest.

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Despite all the energy that goes
into gathering these leaves, hardly
any will be taken into the burrow.

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Perhaps collecting grass is
a vestige of the time
when puffins made proper nests,

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or perhaps grass and twigs are
a suitable gift

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to impress a mate, the puffin
equivalent of a bunch of flowers.

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Tufted puffins are by no means
the only kind of sea-bird
to come to the island.

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It's a varied place and
there's ground to suit many tastes.

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Glaucous-winged gulls nest
on the grass crests
of cliffs and pinnacles.

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Kittiwakes, fishing in the sea near
the island, rest on its cliffs.

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Tidal pools in the low centre
of the island yield food
for other birds.

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Sandpipers.

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And black oyster-catchers probing
for a meal.

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Crevices in the rocks provide
nest sites for pigeon guillemots.

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And on the steep cliffs
facing the gulf of Alaska,

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common and thick-billed guillemots
line the ledges.

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Exposed to the full force of storms
surging in from the Pacific,

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they perch precariously,
cradling their single eggs
between their feet.

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Ten kinds of sea-bird breed
on St Lazaria.

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That makes it a magnet
for scavengers and predators.

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The bald eagle,
the national bird of America.

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Alaska is one of the few areas
that still support good numbers.

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Most years, one or two pairs
of these powerful birds
nest on the island,

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supplementing their diet of fish
by plundering sea-bird colonies,

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and even snatching puffins
from the surface of the sea.

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An Indian legend maintains that
St Lazaria was born in fire,

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cast from the throat of a volcano
just across the sea.

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Geologists agree
that these rocks are volcanic,

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the result of an upwelling of lava
some 40,000 years ago.

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The lava cooled and the sea sought
out lines of weakness in the rock,

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carving it into strange arches
and pinnacles.

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Caverns run deep into the cliffs.

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Where their mouths open
below high-water mark,

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they form blow-holes.

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Waves, surging in, compress the air
trapped within the cave...

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.. until the pressure builds
and it blasts its way out.

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Even in midsummer huge waves beat
upon St Lazaria's exposed shore.

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They may have travelled hundreds
of kilometres from some distant
storm-centre in the Pacific.

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Often they sweep across the outer
barriers of rock, flooding
the low centre of the island.

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But the water in one pool rises
mysteriously with the tide,
even on a calm day,

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even though a rock barrier
completely separates it
from the sea outside.

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Sometimes a seal appears
from the limpid depths of the pool,
as if from nowhere.

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There is clearly a hidden link with
the sea, a channel through which
water, and the seal, can enter.

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In the centre of the pool,
a narrow shaft leads straight down,

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perhaps following the line of some
ancient outpouring of molten rock.

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Fifteen fathoms down, it turns
and becomes a horizontal gallery.

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Incredibly, in what is normally
total darkness,

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the walls of this submarine passage
are encrusted with brilliantly
coloured corals.

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The fissure leads on
into the darkness,

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not straight to the sea, but
towards the centre of the island.

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It's never been followed
to the other end, but it must
ultimately run to the open sea.

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Wolf eels and tiger rock-fish
usually live on the deep reefs
around St Lazaria.

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It may be the search for such fish
that draws seals
into this submarine tunnel.

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On the cliffs above the pool,
the puffins are well-established.

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By June, most burrows will have
a single egg.

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While one partner incubates,
the other is free to fly out
to sea to feed.

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Some days the colony seems
almost deserted;

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on others, there's a constant
coming and going.

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This tapping of bills is
part of puffin courtship.

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All the breeding birds
in the colony will have found
a mate weeks before,

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but they still bill-tap
with their partners.

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This continuing courtship seems
to strengthen the bonds
between them.

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Bill-tapping pairs often attract
onlookers.

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Although the burrows are packed
close together, puffins are
territorial.

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Each pair defends a small area
around the hole.

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This yawning is a kind of threat,
warning off an intruder.

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If intimidation fails,
they may come to blows.

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Tufted puffins account
for only a tiny proportion
of St Lazaria's breeding birds.

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Most of the others are found, not
on the cliffs or grassy headlands,

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but in the small patches of forest
that crown the ends of the island.

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The trees are Sitka spruce.

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Some may have survived
the storms of three centuries.

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They're watered by two-and-a-half
metres of rain a year,

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that's enough to cover a tall man.

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Like the jungle of the Amazon,
this is a rain forest,

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not a tropical,
but a temperate one.

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During the day,
the forest seems almost deserted.

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Most of its inhabitants are
hidden or absent.

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Only in the brief Arctic night
does it come alive.

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In a honeycomb of burrows beneath
the trees, something is stirring.

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BIRD CALLS

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From far out to sea,
there comes a winged invasion.

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Storm petrels.

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They're called petrels
after St Peter who, the Bible says,
once tried to walk on water,

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as petrels often flutter and patter
with their feet as they feed
on the surface of the sea.

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These frail birds may fly hundreds
of kilometres to reach the island.

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They must time their arrival
for the short hours of darkness,
for only then are they safe.

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An estimated 540,000 petrels nest
on St Lazaria.

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They congregate here

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because very few islands are free
of ground-based predators,
such as rats or mink,

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and have soil that is soft enough
to burrow into.

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They dig tunnels the length of
a man's arm. Like puffins, they use
their nest-holes year after year.

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Two kinds of petrel nest
on the island.

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This is the forktail petrel.

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The other one's called Leach's
petrel. They're about the size
of a blackbird.

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Petrels have a prominent nostril
on the upper part of their beak.

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They're unusual among birds
in having an acute sense of smell.

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This may help them find food
on the surface of the ocean,

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and petrels locate their own
burrows at least partly by smell,

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though if their mate is at home,
the partner may identify it
by its calls.

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BIRD CALLS

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Petrels lay only one egg.

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A forktail's egg takes seven weeks
to hatch, longer than
almost any other bird's.

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Petrels feed far out to sea
and the egg is often abandoned
for days at a time.

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There's only the scantiest nest
to raise it off the damp ground.

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It'll survive a drop in temperature
that would kill most eggs.

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An egg has been known to hatch
after 71 days, for 31 of which
it was unattended.

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With the parents away so much,
the chick may hatch alone.

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A chick can survive being chilled
but its chances are greater if it's
brooded for the first few days.

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It can't generate its own internal
warmth until it's four days old.

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Petrels aren't the only
burrow-nesting birds in the forest.

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This is a rhinoceros auklet,
so-called from the strange growth
on its bill.

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It's a kind of secretive,
nocturnal puffin.

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About 2,000 of these birds nest
on the island.

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During the day,
they remain offshore.

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Only at night, do they bring fish
for their young, which are waiting
hungrily in the burrows.

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Petrels don't feed their chicks
on fish.

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They eat tiny shrimps and squid,

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caught far from the island,
beyond the contintental shelf.

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Instead of bringing them back whole
they store the natural oils derived
from their prey in their stomachs,

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and regurgitate it
when they return to the nest.

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Visits to the open ocean take
parents away for two to three days
at a stretch,

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so it's not often that both are
in the nest-hole together.

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This pair may not have seen
one another for many days.

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Their chick hatched only hours ago.

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The returning parent hasn't yet
seen what's become of the egg

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which it's been helping to incubate
for the last seven weeks.

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It will be some sixty days
before the chick leaves the nest.

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For much of that time,
it will be left on its own.

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This chick was abandoned
within two days of hatching.

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It's able to conserve its energy
by greatly slowing down
its heartbeat and respiration,

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but these early days are
nonetheless critical.

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Four days later, one parent returns
to deliver its cargo of oil.

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While its parents were away,
the chick has managed to grow,

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using the remnant of the yolk
still within its body.

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Now with this feed of energy-rich
oil, its chances of survival
are good.

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Petrels that don't remain
in the burrows must be clear
of the island before dawn.

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Their sole defence is to spit
sticky, foul-smelling oil
over an attacker

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and that would hardly deter
a stooping eagle or peregrine.

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A feeding frenzy of gulls
greets the sunrise.

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Beneath them swim vast shoals
of sand-lance.

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For the sea-birds,
these teeming finger-length fish

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are one of the great riches
of the Gulf of Alaska.

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They're eaten
by almost every kind of bird.

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Only in the submarine forests
of kelp are they relatively secure.

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This bull kelp is an annual plant.

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In the spring, its stalks grow
several metres in a few weeks.

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At the top of each,
a gas-filled bladder develops

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which holds up the frond near
the surface in the sunlight.

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On the sea-floor, far below,
the kelp has an enemy.

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Sea-urchins graze on the stems that
anchor the kelp to the sea-bed.

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They sever the stalks. The rest of
the plant drifts away, perhaps to
sink and be eaten by other urchins.

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The sea-urchins have an enemy too,

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the sea-otter.

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A few years ago,
there were no sea-otters here.

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They were wiped out in the last
century by Russian fur traders
based in nearby Sitka,

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or "New Archangel", as this capital
of Russian America was called.

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But recently sea-otters were
re-introduced and their numbers
are now increasing.

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More sea-otters mean fewer
sea-urchins.

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Fewer sea-urchins means more kelp.

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More kelp may mean more little
fishes for the puffins to eat.

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It's August and the tufted puffin
chicks have hatched.

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A constant stream of parent birds
bring beakloads of sand-lance
for their young.

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Puffins can dive down
to sixty metres below the surface
in pursuit of fish.

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They don't deliver the fish
right to the chicks' beaks.

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They just dump them in the burrow
or sometimes even at the entrance,

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and leave the chick
to pick them up for itself.

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Each load may be several
small fishes and squid,
all neatly aligned in the beak.

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So how do puffins collect
this mouthful?

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It's thought the puffin holds
the first fish it catches

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against the upper part of its beak
with its tongue, and then uses
the lower mandible to catch more.

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For the time being,
the puffin chick is well-fed.

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But in a few weeks its parents
will desert it and it will make
its first journey out to sea alone.

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By November the puffins and petrels
will have left and the island will
will be deserted, except for seals,

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until once again, in spring,
it will provide a home
for half-a-million birds.

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Subtitles by Dorothy Moore
BBC Scotland 1988