Publications Archive

A subantarctic population of the Fairy Prion (Pachyptila turtur) was studied at South Georgia in 1982-83. Full measurements of breeding birds are given, together with details of breeding habitat, the timing of the main breeding cycle events, and chick growth (weight and wing, culmen and tarsus length). Regurgitated food samples showed the diet to be mainly Crustacea (96% by weight), fish and squid comprising the rest. Of crustaceans, Antarctic krill made up 38% of items and 80% by weight. Copepods (four species, mostly Rhincalanus gigas) made up 39% of items but only 4% by weight; amphipods [three species, principally Themisto gaudichaudii made up 22% of items and 16% by weight. Diet and frequency of chick feeding are compared with those of Antarctic Prions and Blue Petrels at the same site; Fairy Prions are essentially intermediate.

Although the New Zealand fernbirds were long maintained in their own genus Bowdleria, some authors have recently submerged them in the Australasian genus Megalurus. The osteology of the fernbirds shows them to be very distinct, however, so that the genus Bowdleria is fully justified. The skull of Bowdleria is most similar to that of Amphilais (“Dromaeocercus”) seebohmi of Madagascar and these two species are similar in plumage and tail structure as well. A particularly close relationship between Bowdleria and Megalurus may thus be doubted. Bowdleria is characterized by reduced elements of the wing and pectoral girdle, and a strikingly modified pelvis combined with very robust hindlimb elements. This functional complex of the hindlimb is quite unlike any of the presumed close relatives of Bowdleria, but convergent similarities are identified in several other passerine groups. On the basis of plumage and osteology. Bowdleria rufescens of the Chatham Islands is a very distinct species from B. punctata.

Please note:  This newsletter is a Supplement to Volume 34 (1) of Notornis, not a Supplement to Volume 54 (1) as shown on the cover page.  We apologise for this error.

Four species of Pterodroma petrel (P. macroptera, P. cervicalis, P. pycrofti and P. nigrippenis) responded strongly to human calls (termed by us the “war-whoop” method). This response was greater in the larger species and included the following behaviour: more frequent calling, movement towards the observer, and fighting. The level of response in P. macroptera was greatest during courtship and incubation and decreased during the chick rearing stage. Our findings support Warham’s (1988) hypothesis that mainly unpaired birds respond to human calls and that the birds associate these sounds with sexual advertisement.

Attempts to re-establish Wekas, Brown Kiwis and Red-crowned Parakeets in the Waitakere Ranges were made between 1976 and 1986. None appears to have been successful, although Wekas did breed at Huia for several seasons.

This study shows that the Red-tailed Tropicbird (Phaethon rubricauda) has a gradual clinal increase in the intensity of the rose-pink suffusion, egg size, culmen length and wing length in breeding populations between Kure Atoll in the northern Pacific and the Kermandec Islands in the southern Pacific. The illusion that birds from this cline comprise three subspecies has long been accepted because the large range of latitude that each subspecies had been arbitrarily given resulted in significant differences in mean measurements. However, as neither the northern rothschildi nor the southern roseotincta are clearly separable from melanorhynchos in the centre of the cline, they must all be one subspecies. Because the mean measurements of the nominate “subspecies” are nor significantly different from those of birds from similar latitudes in the Pacific cline, or from westralis in the eastern Indian Ocean, there is no valid reason for distinguishing any subspecies in the Red-tailed Tropicbird.