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Christmas Island Bird'n'Nature Week 2008 5 - 11 September 2008

2008 Bird and Nature Week brochure - PDF file (4MB)

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Tim Low is a well-known biologist and prize-winning author of six books. He writes regularly for Wingspan, Australia’s leading bird magazine, and recently wrote a major feature highlighting Christmas Island for Australian Geographic. His most recent book, The New Nature, was praised by Time magazine, and rated by Who magazine as one of the books of the year. His other books include the internationally-published Feral Future, and Bush Tucker, Bush Medicine and Wild Foodplants of Australia. The Sydney Morning Herald describes Tim as a ‘classic Australian scientific stirrer’. He is currently writing a book about birds which has taken him on travels all over Australia and to Asia, Africa, Latin America and Antarctica.
Dr Janos Hennicke specialises in studying the ecology of seabirds using microelectronic transmitters and data loggers. For the past three years he has been studying Abbott’s, Brown, and Red-footed Boobies on Christmas Island, and collaborating with David James to study Christmas Island Frigatebirds. He has also studied Humboldt Penguins in Chile, Magellanic Penguins in Argentina, Red-legged kittiwakes in Alaska, and Northern Gannets in Scotland. Janos has also worked on European Moles, Porcupines, Black Bears and desert spiders, and he is a regular seabird guide on antarctic crusie ships. Based in the Department of Ecology and Conservation at the University of Hamburg, Janos will again return to Christmas Island this year to climb rainforest trees and catch Abbott’s Boobies on their nests.
Mark Holdsworth runs the Orange-bellied Parrot Recovery Programme for the Tasmanian National Parks and Wildlife Service. He has a special interest in birds of prey and is a longstanding member, former President and former journal editor for the Australasian Raptor Association. He has undertaken several expeditions with the federal Dept of Environment & Heritage to band seabirds in the Coral Sea. In 2004 he participated in the ARA expedition to Christmas Island, colour banding the Christmas Island Goshawk.
Dr Nic Dunlop is an animal ecologist and conservationist with a long term research interest in the population biology and marine ecology of tropical seabirds. Between 1984 and 1986 he worked as the conservation officer for the mining operation on Christmas Island and in 1987 he conducted a survey of the Golden Bosunbird for the Australian National Parks & Wildlife Service (now Parks Australia). He currently works for the Conservation Council of WA on the environmental impacts of fisheries.

Bird week participants will be invited in small groups to help Janos catch Abbott’s Boobies high in the rainforest canopy, assist Mark to colour-band Brown Boobies and monitor their colonies on the remote and secluded rocky coasts, and work with Nic and Tim to study the nesting biology and foraging ecology of Christmas Island Frigatebirds and Red-tailed Tropicbirds. Depending on interest and demand, there will also be opportunities to assist in the colour-banding of Christmas Island Goshawks, a Christmas Island Hawk-Owl survey, seabird identification workshops, territory mapping of Island Thrushes and closer looks at the island’s other wildlife. And of course there will be the chance to search for a few of those rarities for which Christmas Island is so famous. Nightly seminars will showcase the results of all the seabird research (revealing the wanderings of the majestic Abbott’s Booby, CI Frigatebirds and more), the status of the endemic landbirds, the rarities of Christmas Island, and the marine and terrestrial ecology of the island.

During Christmas Island Bird Week you can expect to see the following:

Feral Chicken
These birds are common around the fringes of urban areas and small numbers occur well away from habitation. You will see feral chickens near your accommodation.

Red-tailed Tropicbird
A common breeding bird on the island, easily seen on the wing. The Birdweek program will include colour-banding of these endearing birds.

White-tailed Tropicbird
A common breeding bird on the island, easily seen on the wing, even over urban areas. Most of the island birds have a striking golden sheen, rarely seen elsewhere. They are iconic birds on the island, known locally as ‘golden bosuns’.

Abbott’s Booby
Easily seen flying to and from their nests high in the primary rainforest. You will be helping biologist Janos Hennicke attach tiny tracking devices to these majestic birds. The Abbott’s booby is a primitive species that now breeds only on Christmas Island.

Red-footed Booby
A common breeding bird on the island, easily seen on the wing and perching in trees, even within walking distance from your accommodation. Christmas Island is of global importance as a breeding site for this species, with more than 12,000 pairs breeding.

Brown Booby
A common breeding bird on the island, easily seen and very approachable. The Birdweek program will include colour-banding of these endearing birds with Mark Holdsworth.

Christmas Frigatebird
An easily-seen endemic bird that breeds within walking distance of the resort you will stay in. It is the rarest of the world’s five frigatebird species with an adult population of only 1200 pairs.

Great Frigatebird
A common breeding bird on the island, easily seen on the wing, even over urban areas. As many as a hundred frigatebirds can be seen at once in the skies above the island settlement. When puddles are available they drink from these in large numbers.

Lesser Frigatebird
Uncommon on the island, but small numbers can be seen on the wing, and at drinking puddles.

White-faced Heron
Uncommon but regularly sited at various locations including the island tip.

Eastern Reef Egret
A resident breeding bird that is not always easy to see. It feeds below cliffs, often in Flying Fish Cove and sometimes on the golf course.

Great Egret
Two to three are resident on the island, although they do not breed.

Christmas Island Goshawk
A form of the variable goshawk (Accipiter hiogaster), or possibly a distinct species.This raptor is remarkably tame but can be elusive, although birders during birdweek are virtually assured of sightings because of the banding program that will be part of the week's activities.

Nankeen Kestrel
Common along roadsides and around clearings. Kestrels colonised the island from Australia sometime between 1940 and 1950 and they are now present in remarkably high densities.

White-breasted Waterhen
Breeding at various sites, including the tip, where birds can be sighted early in the morning and late in the afternoon. They are shy, but with effort sightings are guaranteed. This bird is a recent colonist from Indonesia, first recorded on Christmas Island in 1992.

Common Noddy
A common breeding bird on the island; easily seen.

Emerald Dove
Common in the rainforest. Males of this distinctive subspecies look very different from Australian birds, with a grey crown and broad white eyebrow. Some authorities consider the Asian and Australasian forms of Emerald Dove to be different species, and this is the only subspecies of the Asian form found in Australia.

Christmas Island Imperial Pigeon
This striking pigeon is very easily seen, and its unusual calls can be heard all though the rainforest.

Christmas Island Hawk-owl
Sightings of this elusive and much-sought-after bird are virtually guaranteed.

Christmas Island Swiftlet
Very common and very easily seen along forest edges. A subspecies of the Asian cave swiftlet confined to the island.

Grey Wagtail
A regular migrant to the island, foraging in small numbers on the roads, sometimes requiring some effort to locate.

Eurasian Tree Sparrow
Common around urban areas.

Java Sparrow
Confined to near-urban areas where it is restricted in distribution but easily found.

Christmas Island White-eye
An abundant bird, endemic to the island.

Island Thrush
Common and easily seen. The island supports a distinctive subspecies, and the only one of three subspecies once found in Australia that still survives.

Download Checklist of Christmas Island Birds - PDF file (109kB)

Other possibilities may include yellow wagtails, barn swallows, waders, and who can predict what else.

Christmas Island Flying Fox
An unusual bat with a bear-like face, confined to Christmas Island, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands off India, and to Nias and Enggano Islands off western Sumatra. In the absence of predators these flying foxes fly about in bright sunshine.

Tropical Reef Fish
A huge range of species can be seen on the reef in Flying Fish cove, including species confined to the Indian Ocean.

Robber Crab
The largest invertebrate in the world to walk on land. With their vivid colours and strange moving parts these crabs are an amazing sight.

Red Crab
One of the specialties of Christmas Island, this endemic crab dominates the rainforest understorey where it consumes fallen fruits and leaves. Because the bird week takes place during the dry season, only relatively small numbers of red crabs will be seen.
Blue Crab – Confined to freshwater seepages within rainforest, this land crab is a Christmas Island specialty.

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