Birds on Palmyra

I found a bird check list for Palmyra at:

   http://avibase.bsc-eoc.org/checklist.jsp?region=UMpa&list=howardmoore

It differs slightly from the list of birds from the Environmental Impact Report for the rat eradication project.

I am not a birder, but given there are only about a dozen species of birds on Palmyra Atoll, I think I should be able to learn how to recognize the ones I am likely to encounter.  The bird numbers will be relatively low when I am there since some of the birds nest and raise their young up in the Arctic during the summer months. I am still expecting a large number of birds.  One of the students on the Stanford@SEA trip commented how quiet it was after they left Palmrya and visited some of the other Line Islands that had more humans and fewer birds.

There are at least eight species of birds that probably nested on the island before the introduction of rats when the military occupied the atoll during WWII.  Now that the rats are gone, the hope is that some of these indigenous bird species will be repatriated. Maybe I can be the first to document the return of one of these species to Palmyra.

I am anxious to have photos to share, so to wet your appetite, here are a couple pictures I took of red-footed boobies when I was on Namenalala Island, Fiji.  Palmyra is home to around 5,000 breeding pairs of red-footed boobies.