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NOTORNIS Journal of the Ornithological Society of New Zealand Volume 29 Part 1 March 1982 OFFICERS 1981 - 82 President - R. B. SIBSON, 26 Entrican Avenue, Auckland 5 Vice-president - B. BROWN, 39 Red Hill Road, Papakura Editor - B. D. HEATHER, 10 Jocelyn Crescent, Silverstream Treasurer - G. M. H. PETERSON, P.O. Box 22230, Auckland Secretary - R. S. SLACK, c/o Royal Society of NZ, P.O. Box 12249, Wellington Council Members: BEN D. BELL, 45 Gurney Road, Belmont, Lower Hutt BRIAN D. BELL, 9 Ferry Road, Seatoun, Wellington P. C. BULL, 131A Waterloo Road, Lower Hutt D. E. CROCKETT, 21 McMillan Avenue, Kamo, Whangarei P. D. GAZE, Ecology Division, DSIR, Private Bag, Nelson S. M. REED, 4 Mamaku Street, Auckland 5 P. M. SAGAR, 38A Yardley Street, Christchurch 4 Conveners and Organisers: Rare Birds Committee: Secretary, J. E. SQUIRE, 135 Tirohanga Road, Lower Hutt Beach Patrol: R. G. POWLESLAND, Wildlife Service, Dept. of Internal Affairs, Private Bag, Wellington Card Committee: R. N. THOMAS, 25 Ravenswood Drive, Forest Hill, Auckland 10 Librarian: A. J. GOODWIN, R.D. 1, Clevedon Nest Records: D. E. CROCKETT Recording (including material for Classified Summarised Notes) : D. F. BOOTH, 16 Valdese Rise, Browns Bay, Auckland 10 S.W.Pacific Islands Records: J. L. MOORE, 32 Brook St, Lower Hutt Assistant Editor: A. BLACKBURN, 10 Score- Road, Gisborne Reviews Editor: D. H. BRATHWAITE, P.O. Box 31022 Ilam, Christchurch 4 Editor of OSNZ news: P. SAGAR, 38A Yardley St, Christchurch 4 SUBSCRIPTIONS AND MEMBERSHIP Annual Subscription: Ordinary member $16; Husband & wife mem- bers $24; Junior member (under 20) $12; Life Member $320; Family member (one Notornis per household) being other family of a member in the same household as a member $8; Institution $32; Overseas member and overseas institution $5.00 extra (postage). Subscri tions are for the calendar year of first joining and are renewed gy invoice each January. Please pay promptly to ensure receiving Notornis and OSNZ News. Applications for membership, changes of address and resignations should be sent to the Treasurer. Exchanges and library subscriptions should be sent to the Treasurer. Editorial matters ONLY should be sent to the Editor. [Registered with the GPO Gisborne as a publication] ISSN 0029- 4470 CONTENTS BECKON. W . N . Breeding Record of the Whistling Dove of Kadavu. Fiji .............................. ............ ONLEY. D . Spotless Crake on Aorangi. Poor Knights Islands WARHAM. J . WILSON. G . J . Size of Sooty Shearwater Popu- lation at. Snares Islands. New Zealand .................. CHILD. P . Additions to the Avifauna of Kiribati and Tuvalu NUGENT. G . Sexing Black-backed Gulls from External Measure- ments .......................................... VEITCH. C. R . Seabirds found dead in New Zealand in 1980 Classified Summarised Notes ........................ ...... Short Notes BROWN. B. Terek Sandpiper feeding like Avocet ...... ...... JENKINS. P . Wood Duck in Marlborough ............ ...... HAWKINS. J . M . Gannets feeding behind trawler ...... ...... CHILD. P . Far inland sighting of Welcome Swallow ..... ...... SIBSON. R . B. Arctic Tern in Manukau Harbour ...... ...... HAWKINS. J . M . Reef Heron on Nelson Haven ...... ...... HOWELL. P . A . G . HARRISON. K . C . A Turnstone-Banded Dotterel relationship. .................. ...... ...... ONLEY. D . Nomenclature of Spotless Crake ...... ...... ...... BROWN. B . Unusual feeding of Red-billed Gulls ............ BLACKBURN, A . 1927 Record of Laughing Owl ............ Obituary . BOURNE. W . R . P . Averil Margaret Lysaght (1905-1981) ...... Rintd by TE RAU PRESS LTD., Fnl Stmt. Girbonw REGIONAL REPRESENTATIVES FAR NORTH: D. E. Crockett, 21 McMillan Ave., Kamo, Whangaroi. NORTHLAND: { Ph. 50954. AUCKLAND: S. Reed, 4 Mamaku St.. Auckland 5. Ph. 547784. SOUTH AUCKLAND: Beth ~rownj39 Red Hill Road, Papakura. Ph. 2988157. 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Sutton, Lorneville, No. 4 R.D., Invercargill. Ph. 358230. LITERATURE AVAILABLE From all bookshops: A field guide to the birds of New Zealand, by R. A. Falla, R. B. Sibson and E. G. Turbott, new ed. $13.95 From B. D. Heather, 10 Jocelyn Crescent, Silverstream: A biology of birds, by B. D. Heather. $1.50 From H. Hagen, 53 Minnehaha Street, Titirangi, Auckland 7: Back numbers of 'Notornis': Parts of Vol. 1, 50c each; Vols. 2-13, $1.00 per part; Vols. 14-21, $1.50 per part; Vols. 22-25, $2.00 per part; Vols. 26-, $3.00 per part; all plus postage (10% in NZ) . Reports and bulletins (1939-1942) $2.00 OSNZ Library catalogue (1976 ed) 17 pp. $0.55 Bandin reports, Nos 8-14, 55c each. ~ermafecExpedition, 1964, by A. T. Edgar. $0.50 Guide to Identification of Shearwaters and Petrels in New Zealand waters (Auckland Museum), J. P. Croxall $0.55 Amendments & Additions to 1970 Checklist $2.00 From P.O. Box 12397, Wellington North: Bird distribution in NZ. A provisional atlas $6.00 From B. D. Bell, 9 Ferv Road, Seatoun, Wellington: OSNZ tie (mid-grey with Notornis motifs). $6.00 NOTORNIS is the journal of the Ornithological Society of New Zealand (Inc.) Editor: B. D. Heather, 10 Jocelyn Crescent, SILVERSTREAM VOLUME 29 PART 1 MARCH, 1982 A BREEDING RECORD OF THE WHISTLING DOVE OF KADAVU, FIJI By WILLIAM N. BECKON ABSTRACT The first known record of the nesting of the Whistling Dove (Ptilinopus layardi) is presented, along with notes on its diet and very un-dove-like whistled calls. The fact that only the female was seen brooding the young may be of some sig- nificance to an understanding of the evolution of extreme sexual dichromatism in the Golden Dove Group to which the Whistling Dove belongs. INTRODUCTION The Whistling Dove*, Ptilinopus layardi, is confined to the island of Kadavu and the nearby smaller island of Ono, in the south of the Fiji Group. It is one cf the distinctive " Golden Dove Group" of three geographically representative fruit doves, all of which are endemic to Fiji. The other two members of the group are the Golden Dove (P. luteovirens) and the Orange Dove (P. vicfor). The group was originally classified in a genus of its own, Chrysoenas Hartlaub (1854), but in recent years it has generally been considered to be a subgroup of the genus Ptilinopus (Amadon 1943: 5, 6; Cain 1954: 273, 278; Goodwin 1970: 332). The Whistling Dove is the most " primitive " I have chosen to call this species the Whistling Dove because that name appears to be the most distinctive and most authentic of the English names which have been applied to this bird (Martin 1940: 5). As far as I know, the name Velvet Dove originated with Mayr (1945: 1301, who implied that he had some doubt that the dove gives a whistled call. Goodwin (1970: 378) followed Wood (1926: 116) in using the name Yellow-headed Dove. 2 BECKON NOTORNIS 29 of the group. While sexual dichromatism is very pronounced in the other two species, in the Whistling Dove, adult male plumage is more like that of females and juveniles and that of other doves of the genus Pfilinopus. See Sibson (1972) for Belcher's painting of both male and female. Little has been published about the Whistling Dove since it was originally described in 1875 by E. L. Layard, the British admin- istrator of the newly ceded colony of Fiji. Layard noted that his male specimens, collected in August, had "enormously developed " testes. He concluded that they were breeding at that time. NESTING About noon on 28 September, 1977, I was watching a male Whistling Dove giving his peculiar whistle call in the top of a nearby tree when I stepped back and inadvertently flushed another Whistling Dove off a nest just behind me. The nest was about 3 metres above the ground in forest on a low rounded ridge near the edge of a long- abandoned Fijian teitei, or garden, in the interior of the south-western part of Kadavu, about 3 km south of Richmond Bay (Fig. 1). The nest was a loose thin platform, about 10 to 12 cm in diameter, constructed mainly of twig-like pieces of the vine that grew on nearby tree trunks (Fig. 2). The nest was so sparsely built that one could see right through it from below. It contained a single nestling and a fragment of white shell. A larger piece of pure white shell lay on the ground directly below the nest. FIGURE 1 .- Location of the Whistling Dove nest in the hterior of the mountainous island of Kadavu FIGURE 2 - Whistling Dove nest, photographed from directly below, after death of hatchling. A 1-foot (30.5 cm) ruler across the nest provides a scale. 4 BECKON NOTORNIS 29 Apparently the nestling had just hatched. The membrane inside the eggshell was still moist, although it had not rained that day. The hatchling lay prostrate; its down was damp and matted. The next morning the nestling held its head erect and its light-coloured scanty down was dry despite the misty rain that was then falling. The nest was situated where two thin branches came close together.