Publications Archive

1978. Oxford University Press. 1012 pp; 404 figures, maps, photographs and field sketches; 14 col. and 18 b & w plates; 19 appendices; bibliography; 275 x 195 mm

Some bird observations for late August-early September 1978, are summarised. The Siberian tattler is recorded for the first time in Western Samoa and two seabirds (crested tern and little tern). A new breeding record for the brown booby is also described. Some brief comments are made on comparative behaviour with Fijian land birds.

Black-fronted terns (Chlidonias albostriatus) were studied between December 1974 and February 1976 along the Waitaki River system and around Otago Harbour. Numbers of terns given in this paper are from a monthly census taken during this period.

Records of wedge-tailed shearwaters (Puffinus pacificus) made between 1960 and 1978 in the south-west Pacific are collated to indicate changes in their annual distribution between New Zealand, Fiji, Samoa, and Tonga. The absence of wedge-tailed shearwaters from the study area on migration from June to September is shown, and migration tracks to and from their supposed wintering grounds in the eastern Pacific are suggested. Reference is made to feeding, and to birds seen in feeding flocks with wedge-tailed shearwaters. The apparent absence of avian food piracy on the species is discussed. An attempt is made, with little success, to deduce the location of breeding sites in the study region.

1977. Pp. xx + 406. David R. Godine, Boston