Longtails nesting on Rabbit Island found themselves facing an unexpected predator last year after multiple chicks were taken by crows.

Patrick Talbot, a curator at the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum and Zoo, wrote in the Spring edition of the Envirotalk newsletter that the colony on the island in Harrington Sound started their season well with eggs in all but one of the 12 monitored nests by mid-April.

Mr Talbot said: “11 of the 12 nests had eggs laid with nine successfully hatching. So, it came as quite a surprise when, between April 27 and May 16, eight of the nine chicks had vanished.

“All the chicks were younger than three weeks when they disappeared and some went missing all on the same day.”

Mr Talbot said that the island, owned by the Bermuda National Trust, is routinely cleared of rodents, dogs and cats, leaving predatory birds as the remaining suspects.

He added: “A heron would readily eat a young bird, and great blue and yellow-crowned night herons are frequent visitors to the island.

“However, there has never been a record of them taking longtail chicks.

“There were no raptors recorded in Harrington Sound at that time, except ospreys who prefer eating fish.

“The only winged predator known to prey on longtail chicks and eggs who were around in abundance at the time were crows.”

Mr Talbot said that all of the missing chicks were in exposed, highly visible nests, with the surviving chick in a more hidden location.

He said: “Longtail burrows carry the smell of guano and fish which would make them easily located by rats.

“If rats had been doing the dirty deed, I would have expected the chick to have been found and killed too.”

Mr Talbot said that crows are highly intelligent birds and are known to “stake out” nest sites, waiting for adult birds to leave their eggs or chicks unprotected.

He said: “Crows have historically done this around the Castle Harbour islands but this was the first time it was recorded in Harrington Sound.

“Crows are also capable of learning from, and teaching behaviours to, other crows.

“The only way to prevent the crows eating more longtail chicks would be to cull them.”

Mr Talbot said that licensed firearm officers with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources took up the mantle and the crows fled the area.

He said that all of the parents that lost a chick, including the parents of an egg that went missing, re-nested a few weeks later producing five chicks, four of which successfully fledged.

Mr Talbot added: “The 2026 season has started well, but a bit late due to the extremely bad weather Bermuda experienced in February.

“Hopefully the crows will have learnt a stark lesson and have decided that it isn’t a good idea to live up to their group name — a murder.”