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 is common on most of the large islands of the group. Not common on Niihau and rarely seen on Lanai. It frequents shore lagoons and muddy shore lines, standing stock still in the water with neck drawn in and striking at passing pond and sea life; it also captures some of its food on land. Its food is chiefly small fish, dragon fly larvae, water beetles and mice. Its voice is a hoarse croaking quack. It nests in company, building in trees a rough nest of sticks and twigs.
ORDER ANSERI FORMES
| ANATIDAE | Duck, Goose and Swan Family |
HAWAIIAN GOOSE
| Nesochen sandwichensis (Vigors) | Plate 3, Fig. 6 |
Hawaiian name: Nene.
"Adult male. Hind neck, head, cheeks, chin and throat black, as also a narrow ring around lower throat, rest of neck and sides of head brownish buff; feathers on throat and sides of neck narrow and acute and so arranged as to disclose their black bases; above deep hoary brown, feathers margined broadly with brownish white, rump and tail dusky black, as also the primaries; beneath grayish brown; feathers on sides and flank with gray tips; lower belly and under tailcoverts white; bill and feet black. Length 23 to 28 inches the female the smaller." (Henshaw.)
This fine bird, endemic to the Hawaiian group and confined to Hawaii and Maui, was originally very common on Hawaii and not at all uncommon on the northwest slope of Hualalai, North Kona, in 1891. It probably migrated between Hawaii and Maui and sometimes was. reported to straggle to other islands. The other islands did not present foraging grounds on the uplands as attractive to it as the mountains of Hawaii and Haleakala on Maui. It had become accustomed to semiarid waterless country where it obtained the moisture it needed from the upland berries on which it fed in the summer and the rich soft plants of the lowland lava flows where it wintered and raised its young. From being long away from water the webs of its feet had become atrophied and shrunken to about half the size of those of other geese. It probably never swam unless perhaps in lagoons on the lowlands. Yet it enjoys swimming in domestication. The sparse vegetation on the open lava flows is rich, especially on the lowlands in the wet season, hence the birds migrated to the lowlands to breed. Those we collected there were much fatter than the specimens we took at about 2,000 feet elevation.
We hunted this goose in December 1891 on the rough lava flow of 1801, down nearly to sea level, and up the side of the mountain on the Huehue ranch to about 2,200 feet elevation. It was open shooting season and a party of hunters went over ground at the higher elevation where we had taken specimens a few days before. They found a nest with four eggs, caught two very young chicks and shot a young bird nearly full grown. We were not fortunate in finding young birds. It pained us to kill specimens at a time when the birds had young but the few we killed were as nothing compared to the numbers the hunters would shoot of this unwary bird. Ten years afterwards Henshaw drew attention to the mistake of having the open season when the birds were breeding. It is little wonder that the species faced danger of complete extinction in a wild state. There are still a few wild birds and some semi-wild that have been raised by ranchers. It is likely that the ranchers have saved the species in a wild state by this action. The bird is now under protection and it is hoped that those remaining will become sufficiently wary to fight, the mongoose from its eggs and young.
The nest is described as a hollow in the ground, or the eggs laid on the surface surrounded by a fringe of pieces of brush. Henshaw gives the number of eggs as from three to six. He described them as of a delicate cream white, averaging about 3.36x2.35 inches. The Hawaiians told us they generally had only two chicks. The two little goslings we saw were brown with whitish markings principally on the under parts. They seemed quite unafraid, of human beings. The natives used to hunt the nene for food when the birds were moulting and unable to fly, as related by Wilson in "Birds of the Sandwich Islands."
HAWAIIAN DUCK
| Anas wyvilliana wyvilliana Sclater | Plate 3, Fig. 4 |
Hawaiian names: Koloa; Koloa maoli. (Maoli signifies 'indigenous' or 'native,' to distinguish the bird from the migratory and domestic ducks.)
"Adult Top of head blackish; neck, upper back and interscalpulars brown with rufous brown bands; lower back, rump and upper tail-coverts brownish black; speculum deep purple, bordered with white; sides of head, neck and throat brown mottled; breast rufous brown with U-shaped blackish markings; abdomen brownish buff; sides of body rufous heavily marked with deep brown; length about 20 inches' (Henshaw.) Some of the males have the central tail feathers curled upwards. The chick in the down is brown on the back,.lighter below.
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