The hillside between the Swansea golf course and Great Oyster Bay is cratered with mutton bird burrows and littered with headless chicks. To be precise, headless short-tailed shearwater or, more precisely, Puffinus tenuirostis chicks.
The adult birds are absent, already on their journey north to the Arctic. The chicks will soon follow, swimming until they have fledged, then flying north guided by the GPS in their DNA. After four years the survivors will return to this same hillside, find a mate with whom they will remain for life, and lay a single egg each year.
Survival for the chicks is by no means guaranteed. Native Aboriginals still harvest thousands of chicks each year for their oil and their meat. (Tastes like mutton!) Feral cats stalk the burrows at night, eating only the heads of the unwary and leaving a mess of carcasses and feathers.
