Records of the Bar-Tailed Godwit and Tufted Duck on Midway Atoll
Records of the Bar-tailed Godwit and Tufted Duck on Midway Atoll.-Through the courtesy of the United States Navy and financial aid provided by the American Philosophical Society, and the Bureau of Aeronautics, United States Navy, the author spent 14 days on Midway Atoll in the Pacific Ocean in December of 1959. The primary purpose of the trip was to obtain avian specimens for morphological and parasitological studies. However, a few study skins were prepared, and among these are two worthy of recording.
One female Bar-tailed Godwit, Limosa lapponica baueri, was taken on Sand Island on December 12, 1959. Although this species is known to migrate over water southward from the Aleutian Islands, there seems to be no specimen from Midway; the nearest locality of record, supported by a skin, is Laysan Island.
On December 5, 1959, a very emaciated, male Tufted Duck, Aythya fzdigzdu, landed in a shallow puddle on a macadam road on Sand Island of the Midway group. The nearest known occurrence to the north is Wilson’s sight record (Condor, 50, 1948:126) on Attu Island, some 1900 miles away. The nearest known occurrence to the west is in the Marianas Islands.
Both skins are in the collection of Southern Illinois University.
I am grateful to Dr. A. L. Rand of the Chicago Natural History Museum for identifying these ~two specimens, representatives of which I had never seen.
On each of my trips to Midway (1945, 1946, and 1959) there have been repeated reports of “owls and cormorants,” made by naval personnel. In March, 1959, Mr. John W. Atwell (U.S. Navy) sent me a colored slide of two owls, taken as the birds left the perch. They were not identifiable except as owls. In December, 1959, a jaeger (Stercorarius) was observed repeatedly, but it could not be obtained. It would seem worthwhile for persons visiting the atoll to make an attempt to take specimens.-HARvEY I. FISHER, Southern Illinois University, Cwbondale, Illinois, May lb, 1960.
