when disturbed on the nest but the adult male has only a squeaking or hissing sound; the pair stay together by the nest a great part of the time. Flying fish are plentiful near the islands and the birds are almost always replete. The frigate birds despoil them of their catch, though they succeed in retaining sufficient to feed their young. One observer is positive that it always gives up a flying fish to the frigate, retains a squid for its young and a flying fish for itself.
Immature noddy tern (Anous stolidus pileatus Scopoli) on Rabbit Island, Oahu.
Photo by William V. Ward.
Red-footed boobies on nests, Moku Manu. Large downy chick sitting up in middle. Sooty tern and other birds in the air.
Photo by C. K. Wentworth.
They nest in scattered companies laying their two eggs on the bare ground. The young bird in taking its food from the parent thrusts its head right down the old bird's throat.
| FREGATIDAE | Frigate Bird Family |
FRIGATE BIRD
| Fregata minor palmerstoni (Gmelin) | Plate 7, Fig. 7 |
Other name: Man-o'-War Hawk. Hawaiian name: Iwa (a thief).
Hawaiian tern or white-capped noddy (Atwus minutus melanogenys) on Midway Island.
Photo by courtesy of the Bishop Museum.
The female is larger than the male, their average length being about 37.5 inches. Their wing spread is over 7 feet. Bills are strongly hooked at the tip, and their feet much atrophied so as to be almost useless to them. The male is black above with a metallic gloss of green and purple on the feathers, long lance shaped feathers on the back; blackish brown below; wings and deeply forked tail black; gular pouch reddish yellow, capable of being blown up into a scarlet balloon under its beak as a mating attraction. The female is blackish brown with little gloss, breast white; scarlet round the eyes, gular pouch and greater part of lower mandible, rest of bill gray; legs pinkish white. The young have head and neck brick red changing to white, probably before they take wing, upper parts brown and lower white. Chicks are covered with white down. The egg is white, oval, 2.5x1.1 inches. When the chick is well grown a second egg is sometimes laid, and a large chick and an egg or a large chick and a small one may be seen on some nests. A curious sight is to come on a rookery with males sitting on the nests, a number of them with their red neck bladders partly blown up; once I counted 8 close together.
Red-tailed tropic bird (Phæthon rubricauda rothschildi Matthews) on Midway Island.
Photo by courtesy of the Bishop Museum.
This bird cannot stand, walk or probably even swim. But in the daytime, at least, it can live almost indefinitely in the air. The night air currents may not be so favorable to it in flight thus it generally returns to its roosting place in the evening, where it sits on some slightly elevated object. It can catch fish from the surface of the water without alighting, rob other birds in the air, pick up a small object from the ground if it has fairway to drop down, poise itself over it and rise unimpeded. Only once did I see one settle on the water and to my surprise it rose from the surface without difficulty. It is almost helpless to take wing from a perfectly level land surface. A slight elevation permits it to spread its wings and utilize the warm upcurrent of air, when a few flaps takes it off. They swarm over every nesting island; floating high in the heavens, mere specks in the distance and soaring in the air at every level, and numbers sitting on their nests on top of the shrubbery. Where there are no plants large enough to support their nests they build up from the ground, robbing other nests for material if left unguarded.
Blue-faced booby (Sula dactylatra personata Gould) and young on Necker Island.
Photo by courtesy of the Bishop Museum.
Anything in the way of flesh is food for the frigate bird. It can fish for itself if its prey comes to the surface of the water, or catch flying fish on the wing. The young birds, distinguished by their white heads, are constantly on the watch for any chicks left unattended. Even the old frigates must watch against them. When we walked through a rookery of nesting frigate birds and disturbed the sitting birds many chicks were carried off and swallowed by these white-headed marauders. They take turns in dipping and poising over their prey. It does not matter which one catches it, the quickest flier of the others has an equal chance of swallowing it. Their habit is to drop their prey several times, dive down and catch it in midair. But usually another has caught it and so it passes from one to another till dead when it is quickly swallowed. If a fish, it is ferociously torn to pieces by the others from the bill of its captor.
The large chicks on the nests calling for food hiss like young owls; they squeal, rattle their bills and swing their long flexible necks from side to side menacingly when approached; while the old birds on the wing over the nests keep up a continuous kek kek.
Their soaring flight is beautiful and a few hundred on the wing when put off their nests is a sight to be remembered. Several hundred of them join in a flock, heads to the wind, independently, without progressing, they sail from one side to the other, passing and repassing each other; wings not moving, long forked tails opening and closing, heads moving from side to side, they present a unique and beautiful sight. A wide column of these birds half a mile long high in the air sailing to sea in the evening is an almost incredible sight. I saw this in July 1938 on Howland Island. Hadden also describes it at Midway. They would not likely be migrating in the middle of the breeding season. Possibly they were going out to meet the incoming food laden boobies.
The frigate is not credited with flying far from its home base. One banded on Enderbury Island travelled about 1,100 miles to Tongareva or Penrhyn Island. It was retaken there and its band number reported to the Fish and Wildlife Service, Washington, D. C. It may, of course, have been caught in a storm and blown there. It went in the opposite direction to which some brown boobies, its favorite food provider, travelled.
ORDER CICONIIFORMES
| ARDEIDAE | Heron and Bittern Family |
BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT HERON
| Nycticorax nycticorax hoactli (Gmelin) | Plate 2, Fig. 2 |
Other name: Fish Hawk. Hawaiian names: Aukuu; Aukuu-kahili. (Kahili—a flybrush, referring to the bird's white occipital plumes.)
This is one of the few non-migratory shore or land birds that is not endemic to the group. It has not changed sufficiently to be regarded as different from the species of the mainland of America which ranges from Central North America to the Argentine.
It is a fine looking bird in full plumage. The head of a male specimen shot at Hanalei, Kauai in April 1891 was blue-black on top, the upper parts greenish brown, under parts and forehead of a whitish shade; legs yellowish green; bill black; occipital white plumes 7.87 inches long, not full grown; length 25.87 inches in the flesh immature are ordinary-looking light brown birds.
It
