Pacific Nature Notes

By Raimanu

FRIGATE BIRDS. As I sit down to my typewriter this morning, the rain is fall ing outside in gusty showers. It is the kind of weather Frigate Birds like. On another island where I lived, on a bluff overlooking the shore, one could go out first thing on such a morning and be almost certain of seeing some of the great birds go by, flapping and gliding along over the coast.

I first remember seeing the Frigate Birds soaring high over the coast of Tarakan in Borneo, during the 1945 campaign there. Since then I hav« seen them many times, both high and low, over a number of islands of the south west Pacific. But that first sight over the coast of an embattled island reminds

See article page 77 this issue.

me of two things, and both of them are mentioned in Harold Gatty’s famous “Raft Book” which was standard equip ment in combatant aircraft during the war. • First, the value of these oirds to airmen who came down in the sea in trouble, or, for that matter, to the survivors of torpedoed ships, too. For this is essentially a land-based bird, and to see him means that land is not very far away; while to watch the direction >f his flight in late afternoon is an ilmost certain indication of the direction n which land lies, for he does not spend he night at sea.

• Second—and this arises out of the first—the general, but erroneous belief, that the Frigate Bird is of the open sea

far from land. My encyclopedia, for example, perpetuates the error. But to quote Gatty: “Walt Whitman probably

helped this idea along; but as Murphy aptly states, when the poet wrote of the Frigate Bird: ‘At dusk thou look’st on Senegal, at morn America’ the only flight involved was a poetic one.”

You are likely to find one or other of the several different species of this bird anywhere over the warmer oceans of the world. But here in the south-west Pacific there seem to be two types commonly seen, one larger than the other. Opinions appear to differ among those who have written on the subject, but it looks as if the Great Frigate Bird is most often seen out in the island groups, while the Lesser Frigate Bird is more likely to be met with as you get nearer to Australia.

To those of us who have not been in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands it must remain something of a mystery how these birds can be be trained to carry messages from island to island. But their ability to do so is well known, and is com memorated on one of the postage stamps of that Group—the Vzd stamp of 1939.

The same practice has been reported from Samoa, but has perhaps died out before this.

The natives of Fiji make no such use of the bird, but do place some faith in it as a barometer. To them it is invariably the “Storm Bird,” and its appearance is taken as a sure sign of bad weather to come. After several years of observation, I feel that they may be right. But more often than not, so I’ve noticed, the bad weather is virtually

with us before the birds make their appearance.

Another Fijian tradition is that all the storm birds in the Group have their home in the same place at Qilaqila Point, on the north-western corner of Vanua Balavu, and thither they repair every evening, no matter in what part of the islands they may be. The situation is probably this—that Qilaqila is one of their regular roosting, and perhaps nesting, places. But there are others, and my inquiries point to Ono-i-lau, Gau, and Yadua as such places.

One writer has mentioned how these birds “glide effortlessly through the air, sometimes for hours without a wing beat, the deeply forked tail opening and closing like a pair of scissors.” I have never had time to watch them for hours to check this, but their build is so specialised for gliding and soaring that it may well be true. They have the reputation of being the lightest in weight of all birds for their size. Specimens with a wing spread of seven feet have been found to weigh just oVer three pounds.

These Island residents were in Auck and during December:— Mr. and Mrs. T. G. Blanchflower en oute to England from Tonga, where Mr. [?]lanchflower has completed a term of 8 months as Director of Lands.

Motu Sameta (second left) and Takai Lalapiu of Niue (right) were met by Aliva lataora and Anna lese on arrival by air.

Mr. H. T. Duane, formerly of Niue nd lately of Tahiti, with two former esidents of Tahiti, Mrs. Lillian Boot and Irs. Isobel Muir.

Mr. and Mrs. Papalii Uiu from Apia.