MAKAHU'ENA, Kaua'i —The black-and-white seabird with the stiff leg scrabbled up a mesh ramp, turned into the wind and hoisted its slim wings in a high vee.

And then it lifted off, taking a great sweeping turn to the right — to the sea. It dropped to the wave tops and disappeared from view, gliding as if it had been doing this all its life.

But it was this Newell's shearwater's first view of the ocean. The bird had crashed to the ground on its initial flight out of its mountain nesting burrow, breaking a leg in the process. Someone picked up the stricken bird and delivered it to a shearwater aid station at one of Kaua'i's fire stations.

It was rehabilitated in a room at the Kaua'i Humane Society by the Save Our Shearwaters program. And once the leg fracture had healed, it was placed in a pond with fish, to see if it could still navigate. It could.

"They're like seals underwater. They twist and turn, and catch fish without any problem," said Sharon Reilly, director of the Kaua'i Island Utility Cooperative seabird program.

Reilly released three shearwaters Thursday — the last recuperated fledglings of the 2006 shearwater nesting season.

More than 400 of the birds plummeted to the ground in the fall — almost all of them just out of their burrows, on their first flights out to sea. If they make it past civilization, these shearwaters will remain at sea for two years before returning to land to breed. During that period, they range widely over the ocean.

But many never make it to shore on their early evening flights. They run into tall poles, are snagged on powerlines or, apparently confused by bright lights, circle until they hit something or fall exhausted to the ground.

For 30 years, Kaua'i residents have been picking up fallen birds and delivering them to aid stations. Experts release healthy birds from isolated coastal release sites. Injured birds are treated, and if they are well enough, are released when they recover — as was the case with the three shearwaters released Thursday.

Through the early 1990s, the numbers of shearwaters collected each fall was between 1,000 and 2,000; in 1987 it reach 2,445. But the numbers began dropping after 1992's Hurricane Iniki, into the low hundreds. Wildlife officials fear the reduced number of fallen birds reflects a dramatic decline in the number of nesting birds — although aggressive efforts to shield bright lights at resorts, along streets and elsewhere may have helped slow the fallout.

It's known that the colonies of shearwater burrows are vulnerable to predators. Dogs, cats, pigs, rats and owls are all suspect in the killing of shearwaters at their nesting sites, and dramatic habitat destruction in the hurricane may have made things worse, said Thomas Ka'iakapu, wildlife manager for the Kaua'i state Division of Forestry and Wildlife.

"We know that uluhe fern is good habitat, but in the hurricane, whole hillsides were stripped of vegetation. Large areas of uluhe were just peeled off. The nesting burrows were completely exposed," he said.

The plight of the Newell's shearwater is being addressed by the four-member Kaua'i Shearwater Recovery Project, the Kaua'i Seabird Habitat Conservation Plan program with one staffer, and Reilly at the utility. They are addressing threats like bright lights of civilization, mapping nesting colonies and identifying specific threats, and working on ways to help.

The birds are tracked by radar as they approach and leave their colonies, providing information about the location of colonies and populations there.

Among likely upcoming work will be habitat protection — perhaps fencing, and controlling predators around colonies — and satellite telemetry, in which tiny satellite-transmitters are put on birds to see where they go when they're out of sight of land.

Shearwaters aren't the only birds nesting on Kaua'i's mountains, and small numbers of other species are turned in at the aid stations. This past year, seabirds deposited at the stations included the wedge-tailed shearwater, Buller's shearwater, sooty shearwater, Hawaiian petrel, Cook's petrel, Bulwer's petrel, band-rumped storm petrel, Leach's storm petrel, white-tailed tropicbird, red-tailed tropicbird, red-footed booby and sooty tern.

Because some birds are being recovered year-round — some turned in from cruise ships after the birds land on ships at sea — the shearwater aid stations are being opened year-round, although procedures will differ outside the shearwater season.

From January to August, people finding a bird should turn it in at a fire station, fill out the notebook at the station indicating where the bird was found, and call one of the numbers listed at the site so the bird is picked up.

"The cages are not checked daily, and will only be checked when someone calls," Reilly said.

Reach Jan TenBruggencate at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com.