The sexes take turns incubating. Hadden says they change every 18 days, the sitting bird taking no food during that time. Dr. Alfred Bailey describes the returning birds as gently pushing its mate off the egg, greeting the egg and talking to it before settling down to cover it. Hadden says that about 63 days are taken in incubation. After the old birds have departed the young ones take advantage of every rise in the wind to exercise their wings by waving them in the air. Closely packed, hundreds of these birds waving their long wings at the same time is a marvelous sight. I once saw it on Lisiansky Island. The entire surface of the island seemed to be in motion.
The old birds are gone by the middle of July and the young follow in September.
ALBATROSS
Diomedea sp.
A single albatross, larger than the two common species, arrived on Sand Island of Midway in December 1938. It came again in 1939 earlier than in 1938. It died, but not before some photographs had been taken and it can possibly be identified from these. Unfortunately it was buried and no specimen taken of it. Hadden in "The Planters Record" described it "black down the back of the neck, white breast, yellow cheeks and an enormous pinkish yellow beak 1½ times as long as that of the white gooney... fully 10 feet in wingspread... a very deep croaky voice."
Straggling albatross to Midway Islands.
Walter Donaghho saw another on November 28, 1940. "... among black-footed and Laysan. species that was slightly larger than the two. It had a longer pink flesh colored bill with a black band around the base... the bird was splotched with black, brown, gray, grayish and white."
| PROCELLARIIDAE | Shearwater and Petrel Family |
WEDGE-TAILED SHEARWATER
| Puffinus pacificus cuneatus Salvin | Plate 7, Fig. 2 |
Other names: Wedge-tailed Puffin; Moaning Bird (Midway).
Hawaiian names: Koto; Uau kani. (This latter name signifies the crying or noisy uau, and is probably much more correct than the spelling kane, commonly used in works on the Hawaiian birds.)
This is a white-breasted subspecies with Puffinus pacificus pacificus which nests in the Kermadec Islands and is there a brown bird. On the Revillagigedo Islands west of Mexico "both phases and all intergrades between them are found breeding together" (Oliver). On the islands off Oahu only about 5% of the number are brown-breasted, besides intermediates. There seem fewer of the brown-breasted phase in the Hawaiian Chain and more in a small group that were banded on Jarvis Island to the south.
It is 18 inches in length, brown above and white below with gray along the borders between the two colors; bill brown with slaty markings; legs and feet delicate white with dark markings on outside of tibia, very slight in some, grading to an almost entire delicate pearl gray of the whole leg and foot. The sexes differ little, the female being perhaps a little smaller than the male with thinner legs. The young in first 'plumage is not distinguishable from the adult. The newly hatched chick is a puffball of grayish down varying in shade from light to dark gray or light brown. A few adults show albinism slightly on the heads, one had the head almost all white.
Its ocean range is unknown, though probably not a great distance from the nesting islands. It nests in burrows on islands of the Hawaiian Chain, on islands off the main group and on Kauai near the sea and probably on Niihau. Undoubtedly it nested originally on all of the larger islands; not likely in the mountains as stated by some writers, but near the sea.
Ashore this bird does not stand on its feet but is always sitting on the ground. It advances by short runs. In rising it hops with both feet till above the surface. It flaps till clear then sails gracefully away. The birds arriving and departing at the breeding island fly round and round the site for a time before landing or taking off to sea. Their habit is to glide gracefully down the wind, wheel right around and sail back against it with almost imperceptible movement of their wings. At sea it goes in scattered flocks flying tirelessly when the wind is fresh. Its flight is steadier than that of the uau (Pterodroma). Graceful and innocent looking as the pairs seem while sitting at the entrance to their burrows, they can use bill and claws to good effect if molested, biting and scratching viciously.
Banding has established the facts that they invariably return to the same nesting island, that some of the pairs stay together for several years, that groups keep together and return together to the same part of their island nesting place. Of the thousands banded on islands off the coast of Oahu none has so far been reported as recaptured at a distance.
Its cry is a series of moans, groans, snores and wails, with an intensely weird effect when a large number of birds are performing.
Its food seems to be principally a long bodied squid or cuttlefish, and small fish of various kinds.
The birds arrive at the nesting islands in April, mate and prepare their burrows. They leave at the end of May to return in the middle of June to lay. One egg is laid, a delicate white, elongate-ovoid measuring 2.5x1.5 inches. The majority of the birds lay within the space of a few days. The time of laying on Laysan in 1891 coincided with the laying off the Oahu coast in 1937-41. During the mating, hatching and nurturing of the young large numbers come in to the breeding islands from the sea from early dusk till midnight. Numbers leave at daybreak; whether they are the same birds that come in during the night is not known. But it would seem as if different groups come in on different nights; as evidenced by the numbers on the banded birds. Towards the end of October the young are getting fledged and come out of their burrows. Banding has shown that some of the old birds return about that time, no doubt to guide the young to their winter range. The young leave the islands about November or December.
CHRISTMAS ISLAND SHEARWATER
| Puffinus nativitatus Streets | Plate 7, Fig. 4 |
Other names: Black Shearwater; Christmas Shearwater.
This shearwater is sooty black above, darker on head, wings and tail; sooty brown on under parts, tail wedge-shaped; iris dark brown; bill black; legs and feet dark brown, inside webs and toes slate. Length 14 inches. The newly hatched chick is covered with black down which it carries till well grown. Sexes do not differ and the immature is like the adult.
It has a wide range in the tropical Pacific. It breeds on islands of the Hawaiian Chain but was not reported from the main islands till 1937 when I collected a specimen on Moku Manu, off Oahu. A few have been found breeding there in succeeding years. Its one white egg is laid on the bare sand sheltered by grass or other vegetation. It averages 2.3x1.4 inches. The young were beginning to hatch on Laysan in the middle of June 1891. Large numbers came to the island in the evenings and filled the air with their groans. The breeding season seems to be long as I have seen young ready to fly as early as August on Moku Manu and in a succeeding year a well grown chick still in the down in October. One nearly fledged was on Moku Manu on August 18, 1943.
Noddy tern (Anous stolidus pileatus Scopoli) on Rabbit Island, Oahu.
Photo by William V. Ward.
NEWELL'S SHEARWATER
Puffinus newelli Henshaw
Other name: Newett's Puffin. Hawaiian name:
