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Landfall Observations.
Actual landfall of birds arriving from the sea is an event seldom seen. The following reports have been investigated and can be taken as authentic.
Farewell Spit: P. E. White, Principal Keeper at the Lighthouse, supplies details of observations made in 1944 and 1945 (personal communications).
In 1944 a few birds arrived on September 29, but on the following day they were numerous and feeding on the larvae of Nyctemera annulata on Senecio and Lupin about the lighthouse. After about a week's stay the birds disappeared inland.
In 1945 the first birds were seen on September 27 at 5.30 p.m. They were then coming in singly from the sea from different directions at irregular intervals. They appeared very tired, and at first were so tame as to permit close approach, the lighthouse cats destroying a number. Later they became more wary. On succeeding days more birds arrived, and as the weather became rough they remained grounded, feeding on Nyctemera larvae and other insects, and “whistling all day long.” By the middle of October they all had disappeared inland.
Waikawa (Southland): H. Ross (1941, and in personal communications) has given details of observations he made in 1933 (November). The birds came in singly from the sea at night from 10 p.m. onwards. He records the earlier arrivals as calling intermittently from the trees where they were resting, and receiving feeble answers from the incoming birds—so that it appeared as if pathfinders were calling in their kin to safety. Ross states that the birds on land periodically set up such a calling, and every time it was followed after an interval by a barely perceptible answer from the sea, which grew stronger till the solitary migrant arrived. After a joyous welcome all would grow silent till the sequence was again repeated. This unique account has not been paralleled in other
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districts yet. The migration would presumably be a subsidiary flight of birds from an area farther north on the mainland.
East Cape: Mayr (1932) records a dead bird taken at the lighthouse on November 5. This is presumably the same case as that given by Fulton (1910).
Kahurangi Point: Fulton (1910) records the arrival at the lighthouse of a bird on October 6 and three on October 13. In each case the advent coincided with north-west winds.
The two latter reports are taken from the literature, and the circumstances cannot now be checked; there is no reason to doubt the accuracy of any of the above cases. The fact that the birds have been seen on specific occasions arriving from the sea at two lighthouses on the west coast strongly supports the belief that they have in fact come from the direction of the Solomon Islands, their other known habitat.