Two of the three chicks he has labelled "hurricane refugees" have taken up residence in cardboard boxes in a bathroom at his Flatts home, while he managed to return a third to its nest the day after the storm.

Feasting on anchovy and squid, fresh from the Aquarium, the pair are thriving, Mr. Madeiros, the Government Conservation Officer, said.

"They've become official members of the family and my kids love them," Mr. Madeiros said.

"One of them is still quite downy. He's very fat and he eats very well. The other is just about fully plumaged and is probably about four days away from being ready to release.

"They are usually very aggressive creatures, but these two are not bothered by being handled. These are chicks I've been weighing and measuring every three or four days since they hatched, so they're used to human contact.

"Now they just regard me as a source of food ? and they're happy to accept food from any source. They are very definitely wild animals and as soon as they're released, they will revert to their wild behaviour and rely totally on their instinct."

Mr. Madeiros knew the location of the chicks' nest holes would mean they were unlikely to survive the high seas kicked up by the passing Hurricane Florence. On Tuesday, he returned one to its nest, but the nests of the other two had been completely destroyed, so he will keep them at home until they are ready to fly.

Some other rescued birds were taken to the Aquarium, but there also some casualties.

"We did lose some longtails who were swept out of low-lying nest holes by the sea," Mr. Madeiros said. "Out of 160 nests I've been monitoring, we lost about six chicks. That's about as good as can be expected after a storm like that.

"Some of them survived even though their nests were inundated. They must really have been holding on."

Bermuda's other favourite seabirds, the cahows, were unaffected by the storm. Although they use Nonsuch and four other tiny islands to breed, they are out at sea from June until mid-October.

"Cahows have been residents of Bermuda for hundreds of thousands of years and the fact that they go away for just about the entire hurricane season could be a survival strategy they have evolved," Mr. Madeiros said.

"If they had been here in their burrows, you can imagine the terrible damage the surge could have done."

Bermuda's national parks also stood up well to the Monday's sustained 70 mph winds during the worst of the passing category one hurricane.

Three years ago the direct hit from Category Three Hurricane Fabian wreaked its worst havoc on the Spittal Pond nature reserve and left it vulnerable to damage from further storms.

"All the parks fared surprisingly well," Mr. Madeiros said. "This was not even comparable to Fabian.

"At Spittal Pond, a lot of foliage has been blown into the pond, which leads to algae bloom. There is also widespread flooding from the sea of paths in the lower areas.

"But that is completely different from Fabian, when an entire forest was blown down, with 70-foot casuarinas swept in their hundreds into the pond, complete with their root systems. That made the pond into an organic soup."

He said replanted native species like cedars and palmettos had come through Florence well in the Bermuda National Trust and Government sections of the park and that tree damage overall had been minimal.

"On Nonsuch Island, we didn't lose a single tree in the restored native species forest," Mr. Madeiros added. "We did lose three casuarinas on the island but that is no great loss, as we are in the process of phasing them out anyway."

Florence did bring to the island a small number of exotic birds, which had become trapped in the storm as they migrated across the Atlantic, particularly some species of plovers and warblers, he added.