Pomarine Jaeger and Bonaparte Gull in the Hawaiian Islands
Pomarine Jaeger and Bonaparte Gull in the Hawaiian Islands.On the morning of January 10, 1952, while at sea thirty miles from Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii, I sighted two adult Pomarine Jaegers (Stercorarius pomarinus) following the wake of the ship. As we approached closer to land these two were joined by others of the same species. Individuals seemed to stay with the ship for only a few miles, thus making a total count difficult. Eleven birds were seen at one time, of which about one-third were in the adult plumage. The last bird remained with the ship until it was within two miles of the entrance buoy to Pearl Harbor. Conversation with Mr. George Munro of Honolulu indicates that jaegers had not previously been reported from the Hawaiian Islands.
On January l81952, at a sand spit near Kuapa pond on Oahu, I was able to observe a Bonaparte Gull (Laws philadelphiu) for about one-half hour. The bird was in adult winter plumage and when flushed from a short distance showed no excessive wear on the primaries, nor did it apoear to be in an exhausted condition. This species had been recorded only once before from the Hawaiian Islands when a specimen was obtained on Kauai Island on March 14, 1891 (Munro, Birds of Hawaii, 1944: 144) .-ROBERT C. FROKLING, San Francisco, California, April 12, 1952.
