Biologist says NMI has healthy bird population

Micronesia

THE commonwealth has a healthy bird population, but the help of the community is still needed to maintain it and help with reforestration efforts.

Shelly Kremer, a wildlife biologist at the CNMI Division of Fish and Wildlife, was yesterday’s guest speaker at the Rotary Club of Saipan meeting at the Hyatt.

She said Saipan, Tinian and Rota have more bird species compared to Guam and this helps in the reforestration process.

Kremer said birds help in reforestration as seeds that pass through the digestive tracts of birds have more of a chance to grow into trees.

Showing photos of houses and yards on island that were bare from lack of trees, Kremer said birds will not stay where there are no trees.

“Our birds are resilient, but they need our help,” Kremer said.

She is urging members of the community to do their landscaping with the wildlife in mind, making backyards and the general environment friendly for the birds.

Kremer said the CNMI has a lot of endemic bird species, or those not found anywhere else in the world: Rota White Eye, Mariana Crow, Tinian Monarch, Rufous Fantail, Golden White Eye, White-throated Ground Dove, Micronesia Megapode, Mariana Swiftlet, Saipan Bridled White-eye, Nightingale Reed Warbler and the Mariana Moorhen.

Kremer said among the birds that were introduced and are not native to the islands are the Black Drongo, Orange-Checked Waxbill, Island Collared Dove, and the Eurasian Tree Sparrow.

She urged the Rotarians to test their own backyards to check how bird-friendly they are. She said one will know how bird friendly one’s backyard is by the kind of birds that are found there.

“We are urging the community to plant more trees and keep the islands bird-friendly,” Kremer said.

In a Power Point presentation, she enumerated the functions and benefits of trees including water conservation, livelihood, food, beauty, medicines, shelter, oxygen, run-off reduction, carbon storage, noise barriers, flood prevention, paper production, wildlife, soil production, heat reduction, culture, water and air cleaning, fuel and erosion reduction.

Trees that are good for birds are gaogao or tiger claw, ahgoa or false elder, sumak, agatelang, lulujut, alum, aphoghating, nunu or banyan, papaya, guava, nanaso and manzanita.

http://www.micronesicabirdconservation.org/

Rare migratory bird sightings on Rota

A group of biologists from the University of Washington conducting research work on Rota recently spotted two rare migrant birds on the southern island.

Andria Kroner said in an email response to Saipan Tribune that she saw a Eurasian kestrel perched on the power lines across the baseball diamond in Sinapalo while driving through town on the morning of Oct. 11.

Kroner said her sighting may be the only second sighting on Rota, with the first one occurring in 1997. She said only a handful of sightings of this species has been recorded in Micronesia.

Another migrant bird, a Japanese sparrowhawk, was spotted on Nov. 2 by the group's field supervisors, Sarah Faegre and Phil Hannon.

“The sparrowhawk, like the kestrel, is a rare sighting and the bird is considered an occasional migrant to the CNMI,” said Kroner.

She explained that the period between September and March is considered migration season for birds, that time of the year when rare bird sightings in the Marianas are most likely to occur.

Kroner noted, though, that storms can push migrating birds off their normal migration track.

“It is likely that more observations of migrants will occur in the following months and it is even more likely following a storm,” said Kroner. “Many different types of birds are migrating during this season so it is impossible to predict exactly what you might see.”

According to Kroner, some bird species go through the Marianas as part of their normal migration route, with some even dwell on the islands for the entirety of the winter season in the northern hemisphere.

However, there are birds such as the Eurasian kestrel that generally take other routes but can get blown off course by large storms and that juveniles are more susceptible to getting off track, she said.

Continued:  http://www.saipantribune.com/newsstory.aspx?cat=1&newsID=123300