Sanderlings, ruddy turnstones, semipalmated sandpipers, dunlins and more than half the world's population of red knots are among the species that double their weight eating the nutritious eggs.
As a schoolboy with an avid interest in birds, David Wingate was present in 1951 when a Bermudan naturalist succeeded in weaseling the first cahow out of its deep nesting crevice.