he Longtail restaurant, a popular Front Street eatery, may be history but the ?longtail lounge? at the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum and Zoo (BAMZ) is very much alive, as are the chicks residing there.

Thanks to the diligent efforts of head aquarist Patrick Talbot and dedicated staff, nine recovering longtail chicks are currently enjoying the sweet life as pampered guests while being prepared for a return to the wild.

Like members of an exclusive club, the little black and white birds enjoy total privacy in an off-limits corner of the Flatts facility, to which only Mr. Trott and a few others have access. There the rescued fledglings spend their days resting and growing, each in its own spacious plastic container lined with pristine beach sand. ?Room service? includes being hand fed their favourite food, as well as vitamins, being weighed and measured daily, and having the sand refreshed. In fact, the honoured guests are cosseted from check-in to check-out.

If not exactly Handel?s ?Water Music?, the constant sound of flowing water from the nearby fish tanks provides a soothing backdrop, while partial covers help to simulate the privacy of real nests.

Meticulous charts record the daily progress of the chicks, from which individual departure dates can be calculated.

?We are wildliferehabilitation centre in Bermuda. We deal with anything from a small insect to a whale, but not feral or domestic animals,? Mr. Talbot says. Naturally, the list includes longtail chicks, no matter where they are found or left.

The fact that there are nine chicks in care at the moment is not a record for BAMZ, but close to it. Two were already ?in residence? prior to hurricane Florence, and seven after.

Normally, longtails are like our visitors: they come when the weather is good and leave when it isn?t ? a season that runs from March/April to September. But this year, due to a cooler Spring, the adults came, left, and returned later than usual, thus delaying the breeding season.

Normally, adults lay just one egg per season, but if something happens to that egg early in the season the adult bird will lay another one.

It takes approximately 42 days for the egg to incubate, and another eight to ten weeks for the fledgling to be ready to fly, but this year?s combination of factors contributed to the late presence of the rescued chicks.

Nature is very precise when it comes to fledglings reaching their optimum state for flight.

They must attain approximate weights and other measurements to successfully fly away. Unlike land birds, due to the confines of their nests they cannot stretch their wings and practise flight, so when they take off for the first time it?s a one-shot deal.

There are a number of reasons why chicks are found and rescued, ranging from weather conditions, to being over- or underweight, diseased or injured. Some are too fat to leave the nest, while others who are somewhat overweight take off but land on the sea, where they become vulnerable to various hazards: predatory birds and fish. They can also become waterlogged and drown through sitting on the sea for too long. Similarly, immature fledglings can also be left behind in the nest because the adults have fled in the face of approaching bad weather.

Whatever the reason behind each rescue, these fortunate birds will end up being closely monitored at BAMZ?s rehab centre, where they will be brought to the requisite level of development that provides the optimum chance for flight and survival. On the other hand, birds which are found to be diseased are humanely destroyed at BAMZ, as are ones with broken wings and legs.

?We don?t have the facilities to treat them, and often it is not successful anyway,? Mr. Talbot says of the latter.

Once in the BAMZ rehabilitation centre their condition is assessed. If it is deemed not life-threatening, fledgling is given 24 hours of undisturbed rest, following which the process of recovery begins.

?We try to build up their weight so we give them certain foods and vitamins, but no water. They get enough of that in their food,? Mr. Talbot says. ?Younger birds get more squid, but as they grow older we mix it with fish ? just as the adult birds do. For the very young chicks we make the food soft and warm.?

The average weight of an adult bird is between 350 and 400 grammes, while a 600-gramme bird is too heavy to fly. A half-fledged bird weighing 200 grammes is considered ?not that bad?, but an adult bird of the same weight is ?underweight?.

Upon arrival the chest area is checked for flight muscle. A large, bulky flight muscle indicates the bird is healthy, whereas a pronounced breast bones indicates insufficient flight muscle. Weight is checked daily and age is determined by three factors: measurement of the wing chord (like getting your fingertips measured) and tarsus (leg length), and the ratio of feathers to down. Mature birds have no down. The level of crossover of wings atop the chick?s back is another indicator of maturity.

?Most birds come in three-quarters fledged with no down on them, and a leg measurement of between 25 and 28 millimetres which means the chick is at least a month old,? Mr. Talbot says.

Just as they do in real life, fully fledged chicks indicate when the time for departure comes: They stop eating at least a few days before, and they also begin pushing the sand in their boxes aside as they try to climb out of their temporary homes. Due to the positioning of their legs, longtails cannot walk at any stage of their development ? unlike land birds, ?ncluding chickens and ducks, so they shuffle along on their stomachs and webbed feet.

When the time for departure comes, the fledglings are taken to Nonsuch Island and released from a cliff top or put in a burrow, in which case they release themselves.

?After ten minutes they?re gone,? Mr. Talbot says. ?They look very shaky when they first go. We believe they are getting wind drafts and they spiral up and up. We watch them through binoculars for a long period of time, and if we see them go down we go and retrieve them, but I can only think of one that went down.?

And where do they go? Well, like many other facts about the longtail?s life at sea, some conjecture is involved.

?All the ones I have released have gone south, but Jeremy (Government conservation officer Jeremy Madeiros, with whom Mr. Talbot works very closely) has seen them head north, and then he believes they head east and then south.?

One thing seems certain: the Bermuda longtail ? whose correct name is ?white-tailed tropic bird? ? don?t mix with their Caribbean cousins of the same name.

While the white-tailed tropic bird is virtually a local icon ? but not our national bird ? there are in fact up to nine sub-species around the world. There are an estimated 2,500 pairs of longtails in Bermuda compared to 8,000-10,000 pairs in the Caribbean. Even so, the local tally is regarded as ?significant? given the size of the Island.

Mr. Talbot has been studying our longtails for some years and is working towards his Master?s degree in zoology.

Much of his research is innovative, and some of it is assumed due to the fact that the adult birds spend most of their lives at sea and also nest in inaccessible cliff faces, making study difficult. Nonetheless, what he has learned has piqued interest abroad because some of the information is unique, and Mr. Talbot is also indebted to Mr. Medeiros and former Government conservation officer Dr. David Wingate, whose wisdom, experience and collaboration have been invaluable.

Through an active banding programme of chicks, on which Mr. Talbot and Mr. Medeiros work together, it is hoped that more and more answers to today?s questions will eventually be found. These include: Do the adults return to the same location and nest? Are they monogamous? Do they mate for life? Do they turn up elsewhere? How long do they live? Which parent incubates the egg, or do they take turns?

Banding adult birds, and DNA tests to compare Bermuda and Caribbean populations are part of Mr. Talbot?s future hopes, noting that banding adults is an even more painful experience than banding chicks because their strong, sharp, serrated bills pack a very nasty nip.

Residents with cliff faces on the property can help the longtail population by providing nesting sites thanks to the Bermuda Audubon Society, which sells special ?igloos? which have styrofoam shells and are built to withstand hurricanes. For further information ( 292-1920, write PO Box HM 1328, Hamilton HMFX, or visit website www.audubon.bm