Miguel Mejias stuck his bare hand into the bird’s burrow, and winced at the bite that welcomed it.

Bravely, he did it again and again despite the blood, despite the infections, despite the punctured tendon that, for a period, rendered his hand useless.

His view: he was in New Zealand for what could possibly be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. The only option was to enjoy it, warts and all.

He is grateful that both the Bermuda Audubon Society and Bermuda Zoological Society were willing to support his desire to learn more about petrel management and conservation.

Dr Mejias felt the trip was a necessary step towards his dream of following in the footsteps of David Wingate and becoming the carer of Bermuda’s national bird, the cahow.

“I had this gap in time because obviously that job is still occupied [by Jeremy Medeiros]. I had my PhD and I've got a decade or more of experience working with birds, but I felt like I still needed more credentials, more experience under my belt,” he said.

“I guess, because of the colour of my skin ― I'm a young black man ― I felt like I had to go the extra mile, go over the top to make sure I got everything I needed and more to make myself a good candidate for the manager position that looks after the Bermuda petrel and Nonsuch, and that's where the whole New Zealand trip came in.

“I'm incredibly indebted to the BZS and the Bermuda Audubon Society. Both of those organisations saw the value in me. It was the best experience I've ever had in my life.”

Since receiving his doctorate at Canada’s Memorial University of Newfoundland two years ago Dr Mejias has worked for BZS part-time, leading eco-tours and assisting with research projects.

“It’s great because I get to interact with locals, teach them about Bermuda. And I also get to get my hands dirty, literally, doing field work, which is what I'm most passionate about.”

On North Island he received hands-on experience with two species that are endemic to New Zealand, Cook’s petrels and grey-faced petrels.

He first spent time with Ariel Wijaya, a PhD candidate at the University of Auckland who was considering the impact of light pollution on Cook’s petrels, small birds that breed on islands off Auckland.

Like the Bermuda petrel, the nocturnal seabirds rely on the stars to navigate visits to their breeding sites.

“Light plays a really important part in seabird migration, especially fledgeling birds,” Dr Mejias said. “The birds are leaving their nests for the first time to go out to sea.

“In New Zealand, they have this issue where every year, hundreds of Cook’s petrels get stranded in downtown Auckland. Young fledgelings, Cook’s petrels, get disoriented by the lights and end up on the streets.”

Members of Dr Wijaya’s organisation, BirdCare Aotearea, collect the birds and take them into their care.

“I took part in patrolling the streets at night looking for petrels,” Dr Mejias said. “We had to rear them in captivity and rehab them; we had to check their weight, feed them. And I got the pleasure of taking standard measurements from the birds as well ― measuring their bills and their wing chords and their body mass, things like that.”

It brought to light the New Zealand bird’s connection with Bermuda’s petrels.

“We know the Bermuda petrel is also sensitive to light. I think that’s how we figured out that they were still alive, because in the early 1900s a fledgeling cahow struck St David's Lighthouse. That’s what tipped researchers off. That's what set off the whole expedition which led to the rediscovery of them in 1951.”

In contrast, the grey-faced petrel does not seem to be bothered by light at all. It’s likely that Dr Mejias will never forget the time he spent working with James Russell, an ornithologist from New Zealand who has been studying seabirds for decades.

“I joined him on this island called Goat Island and he taught me how to extract seabirds from their burrows. Essentially, what you do is you stick your hand in a hole ― no gloves ― and you let the bird bite your hand.

“The second that bird bites you, you have to take your thumb and grab the bill, and you gently pull the bird out of his crevice,” he explained.

“I've been doing that for years with longtails, and I experienced pain working with longtails. They hurt. But, I must say the bite of a grey-faced petrel is the most painful I've ever experienced from any bird!”

Unlike the longtails the grey-faced petrels caused infection.

“I had welts on my fingers. They were bleeding. I put some antibiotic ointment on it every night and it went away after a few days.

“At one point it bit my tendon and was kind of controlling my fingers, almost like a ventriloquist. It was actually quite jarring how powerful it is. The grey-faced petrel is literally like a cahow that goes to the gym and is taking steroids.”

Despite that he would return each night with his headlamp on, happy to stick his hand into a deep, dark crevice and wait for the inevitable.

“Honestly, it was a reminder: Miguel you’ve literally flown over 9,000 miles to get this training. You have to do this. This is what you're here for.”

Tagging, and bagging the birds for weighing were also new experiences.

“Cahows in Bermuda, we put in these very small bags to weigh them. But the grey-faced petrel, we were putting them inside bags literally the size of pillowcases.

“These birds were huge. After working with grey-faced petrels and bagging them out there, I knew I could handle any seabird in Bermuda,” he said.

“It gave me more confidence. James took this picture of me holding a grey-faced petrel and I thought it just encapsulated my passion. I'm at my happiest; I'm meant to do this kind of thing.”

He’s glad he was able to finally draw on advice given by Mr Medeiros more than a decade ago.

When Dr Mejias expressed interest in one day having his job, the senior terrestrial conservation officer with the Nonsuch Preservation Project told him: “Go overseas and work with other species of seabirds. That's gonna be a huge feather in your cap.”

“When I felt like I wasn't getting the attention or the time given to me to work with the Bermuda petrel after finishing my PhD, I remembered his words.

“That's when I looked at New Zealand and they said, ‘Yeah, we've got two species of petrel. We’ve got two different projects. If you can afford to come down we'll happily host you here,’” Dr Mejias said.

“The truth is the Bermuda petrel is doing great, their numbers are steadily increasing, which is awesome. But as their numbers increase, more and more people are going to actually be encountering petrels in distress.

“Every year, the aquarium rescues at least 50 longtails and that's just because there's thousands of longtails breeding.

“So as long as the Bermuda petrels continue to increase, it's only a matter of time before they become a fairly regular bird that members of the public are rescuing.

“It's gonna be interesting to see how light pollution impacts them as their numbers increase and I now have a sense of how to save these birds and what light pollution problems look like.”

• Miguel Mejias will discuss his time in New Zealand in the BZS classroom at the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum & Zoo on Thursday beginning at 7pm. Admission is free, however donations of $10 would be appreciated. To join, register here: https://rb.gy/1fsnt4