Notornis, 54 (1), 60-60
Article Type: Letter
Notornis, 54 (1), 60-60
Article Type: Letter
Notornis, 54 (3), 180-188
Article Type: Paper
Notornis, 54 (4), 229-230
Article Type: short note
[First paragraphs…] It has long seemed strange that the Kermadec petrels (Pterodroma neglecta Schlegel, 1863) collected by a British warship were first described in the Netherlands. Recent accounts of the voyage of HMS Herald (David 1995), and of its naturalist John MacGillivray (Ralph 1993), have helped to elucidate the chain of events leading to the apparent anomaly. John MacGillivray was the wayward son of one of the greatest British ornithologists, William MacGillivray, friend of J.J. Audubon (Ralph 1999). He became a ship’s naturalist like Joseph Banks, Charles Darwin, Thomas Huxley, and Joseph Hooker, but unlike them went little further. While he was an excellent field observer and made good notes, he was irresponsible in his private life and major writing-up. When MacGillivray was appointed to the Herald the Captain, Henry Mangles Denham, asked for abstracts for the Admiralty of his observations at the places that they visited, such as Tristan da Cunha and St Paul I (Bourne & David 1981, 1995). MacGillivray apparently then took offence when the St Paul I report was published under Denham’s own name (Denham 1854), possibly because he had not included his own, and sent a rude (untraced) comment to a Sydney newspaper. A court of enquiry (including Denham) was held in Sydney on 25 Apr 1855. MacGillivray (was dismissed the following day, but his records were retained on HMS Herald.
Notornis, 54 (1), 42-44
Article Type: short note
[First paragraph…]Sulphur Bay, the southernmost inlet of Lake Rotorua, in the central North Island, New Zealand, is unusual in being a loafing and roosting site for many bird species in an active geothermal area. The shores of the bay including, Motutara Point refuge and the nearby Sulphur Point Wildlife Sanctuary, are home to, among others, black-billed (Larus bulleri) and red-billed (L. novaehollandiae) gulls, New Zealand scaup (Aythya novaeseelandiae), black swan (Cygnus atratus), grey duck (Anas superciliosa), bittern (Botaurus poiciloptilus), New Zealand dabchick (Tachybaptus rufopectus), banded dotterel (Charadrius bicinctus), cormorants (Phalacrocorax spp.), pied stilt (Himantopus leucocephalus), and Caspian tern (Sterna caspia). The birds roost and feed amongst geothermal features that include clear-flowing hot springs, hot ground, and fumaroles that emit carbon dioxide (CO2), hydrogen sulphide (H2S), water vapour (H2O), and other gases into the atmosphere. seemingly untroubled by the gas emissions.
Southern Bird, 29 (Mar),
Article Type: Magazine
Notornis, 54 (2), 120-120
Article Type: Letter
Notornis, 54 (1), 57-57
Article Type: letter
[First paragraph…]Sir Walter Buller (1888) noted that Sir George Grey had told him that “a party of natives” at Preservation Inlet had described the recent killing of small moa at Preservation Inlet. Anderson (1989) did not give credence to this account, because Grey was never at Preservation Inlet. However, contemporary records (Anon 1878) show that Grey passed the inlet while travelling from Hokitika to Riverton on the SS Hinemoain 1878. It is likely that the ship’s log for the Hinemoa for 1878 was destroyed by a fire involving Marine Department records, so proof that Grey did visit the inlet at the time is not presently available. However, the possibility that he did visit remains and Grey’s claim cannot be dismissed on the basis that he did not do so. If the date of 1868 given by Buller is, as is likely, a mistake, that would account for the absence of any mention of this report by Grey 1870 (Grey 1870).
Notornis, 54 (3), 158-167
Article Type: Paper
Notornis, 54 (4), 214-219
Article Type: Paper
Notornis, 54 (1), 20-27
Article Type: Paper
Southern Bird, 31 (Sep),
Article Type: Magazine
Notornis, 54 (2), 116-117
Article Type: short note
[First paragraphs …] Members of the parvorder Corvida, including the Australian magpie Gymnorhina tibicen, have a relatively high level of innovative behaviour amongst birds (Timmermans et al. 2000; Lefebvre et al. 2004). An example of this behaviour is tool use in Corvus spp. (Hunt 1996; Caffrey 2000). Although Australian magpies (magpies hereafter) are known to manipulate objects in behaviour such as play (Pellis 1981ab; Kaplan 2004) they have not been reported to use tools. Here, I report a possible case of tool use by an adult magpie. From 2004 to 2006, I observed a resident group of magpies around the Stardome Observatory in One Tree Hill Domain, Auckland, New Zealand. The Observatory is located on the southwestern slope of the 48 ha park that surrounds the extinct volcanic cone of Maungakiekie, or One Tree Hill. The vegetation consists of mostly grazed pasture amongst native and introduced trees. Public can access the park by either roads or walking tracks. Members of the magpie family are not banded, but the behaviour of the birds that I have observed for 2 years suggests that they consist of the same breeding pair and their offspring. For example, the adult pair is somewhat habituated to human presence and forage around the office window sills of the observatory, sometimes even flying onto them. Breeding pairs of magpie are generally sedentary and live on permanent territories (Kaplan 2004), which is consistent with my observations. The resident pair produced 2 successful broods between 2004 and 2006.
Notornis, 54 (1), 56-56
Article Type: letter
[First paragraph…]The weka (Gallirallus australis) is a remnant species of the diverse suite of avian predators known to have consumed petrels on mainland New Zealand and its offshore islands. The paper by Harper (2006) detailing weka predation of sooty shearwater (Puffinus griseus) chicks and eggs is therefore a welcome contribution to understanding the ecological relationships between petrels and predators. Unfortunately, I believe that Harper (2006) mis-cited Hawke & Holdaway (2005) in his assertion that weka may present a threat to breeding Westland petrels (Procellaria westlandica).
Notornis, 54 (3), 168-179
Article Type: Paper
Notornis, 54 (4), 220-225
Article Type: Paper
Notornis, 54 (1), 28-37
Article Type: Paper
Southern Bird, 32 (Dec),
Article Type: Magazine
Notornis, 54 (2), 115-116
Article Type: short note
[First paragraph …] A “Sandpiper” was among the many birds killed by a surveying party in Dusky Sound in southern New Zealand on 16 April 1773 during Lieutenant James Cook’s sojourn there in the course of his second (1772-1775) voyage (Forster in Hoare 1982: 256). This “Sandpiper” is likely to be the specimen that Johann Reinhold Forster, the official naturalist on the voyage, described as Charadrius torquatula (Forster 1772-1775: II: 18v,19r). His description was dated 17 April 1773, and that the bird inhabited “portu obscuro” (= Dusky Sound). Forster’s detailed manuscript description in Latin was edited and published later by Lichtenstein (1844: 108-109) who, however, omitted Forster’s date of description. What was almost certainly the same specimen was drawn by Forster’s son, George, the assistant naturalist and natural history draughtsman on the voyage. George Forster’s undated painting, folio 121, is now in The Natural History Museum, London (Lysaght 1959: 301). The original painting has never been published, but it can be viewed online at http://piclib. nhm. ac. uk. Forster’s description and the younger Forster’s painting are of an adult male shore plover Thinornis novaeseelandiae (Gmelin, 1789). Neither of the Forsters recorded taking any specimens of the new species back to England.
Notornis, 54 (4), 240-242
Article Type: short note
[First paragraph…] The c.130 species of albatrosses and petrels (Procellariiformes) all lay a single egg during each breeding attempt (Marchant & Higgins 1990; Warham 1990). There are few documented instances of members of the order laying a replacement egg following egg failure, and all but 1 of these examples has been from storm petrels (Hydrobatidae). Boersma et al. (1980) reported 29 nests of fork-tailed storm petrels (Oceanodroma furcata) where 2nd eggs were laid an average of 3 weeks after removal of the 1st egg (from a sample of 36 nests from which eggs were removed). In 1 nest, the same female laid a 3rd egg after the 2nd egg was removed. Both members of the pair were marked at only 1 of the 29 nests where replacement eggs were laid so the parentage of the replacement egg could not be confirmed, but at least 1 of the mates remained the same at a further 11 nests. Other examples of storm petrels apparently re-laying following egg failure include: British storm petrel (Hydrobates pelagicus), n = 2 (Gordon 1931; David 1957); Leach’s storm petrel (O. leucorhoa), n = 27, though only 1 instance was well-documented (Gross 1935; Wilbur 1969; Morse & Buchheister 1979); Madeiran storm petrel (O. castro), n = 8 (Allan 1962; Harris 1969); and Wilson’s storm petrel (Oceanites oceanicus), n = 1 (Beck & Brown 1972).
Notornis, 54 (2), 61-64
Article Type: Paper