Samoa guide. 47. Samoa's seabirds

Those of you familiar with Honolulu may have noticed manu sina fluttering in the trees along Kalakaua Avenue, where they actually nest in the middle of Waikiki.

The nesting behavior of manu sina is remarkable indeed. In fact, “nesting” is being a bit generous, since manu sina make no nest at all. Instead, they balance their large single egg in a knothole, stub, or other more or less precarious perch in a tree. They will even accept man-made structures like rooftops and ledges. It is amazing to see a manu sina stubbornly sitting on its egg as a strong tropical storm swings its branch wildly. Risky though is seems to us, this nesting strategy certainly works, as the White Tern is a common and widespread bird.

Manu sina feed on a variety of small ocean fish, which they pluck from the surface. Unlike all the other seabirds of Samoa, the manu sina carries fish back to its chick in its beak, rather than swallowing them first. In fact, they have the incredible ability to capture several tiny fish in a row, shift them crosswise in their bill, and carry them back home, without dropping a one. How do they do it?

The final seabird to be discussed is the gogo, or Brown Noddy. Like the manu sina, this bird is a member of the tern family, but these two cousins are different in many ways. For starters, the gogo is as dark as the manu sina is light. It is dark chocolate brown all over, except for the top of the head, which is a whitish-gray cap. It is also more sociable than the manu sina, usually nesting in loose groups, or colonies. The gogo is very flexible in its nesting behavior. On Tutuila, gogo usually nest high in trees in forested stream valleys, building bulky nests of dead leaves and other plant material.

They also sometimes nest on cliffs, for example at Fagatele Bay. On Rose Island and other atolls, gogo are happy to lay their eggs on the ground, making only a small scrape in the coral rubble, which they often decorate with empty seashells and even bones. Like other tropical seabirds, the gogo typically lays only a single egg.

There is another gogo here, the Black Noddy, which is smaller and blacker than the Brown Noddy, and has a different way of flying. In good light they are separated from Brown Noddies that have a distinct brown and black pattern on the wings. Black Noddies are more often seen feeding in flocks with manu sina than are Brown Noddies. The diet of the gogo is apparently similar to that of the manu sina, since both birds feed on small fish and squid captured near the surface. How do different birds with such similar food habits coexist? Maybe each catches just a particular kind or size of fish, or dives to a certain depth.

One of the most interesting sights in American Samoa is a foraging flock of seabirds. These groups can have from five or ten to hundreds of birds. They are a great chance to see the many different ways seabirds catch fish: laia flutter above the waves, sometimes dangling their feet into the water, gogo swoop low over the water, fua'o dive into the water with a huge splash, and atafa wait until a fua'o catches some fish, then chase it and take the fish from it. The birds you see in such a flock are a good indication of which fish are below the water, something Samoan fishermen use to locate schools of fish. A flock of small birds like White Terns and Black Noddies usually indicates skipjack or small tuna, while large flocks of fua'o indicate larger fish.

As fishing partners or simply as beautiful neighbors on our islands, Samoa's seabirds are a special part of our wild heritage.

The tava'e (tava'esina), or White-tailed Tropicbird, is one of Samoa's most beautiful creatures. The sight of a tava'e soaring overhead is unforgettable, as its gleaming white feathers and graceful tail streamers blaze against the deep indigo of the Polynesian sky. Happily, it is also a familiar sight, as these birds are common all around Tutuila.

The tava'e, so graceful in the air, is comical and awkward on land, so much so that Samoan legends describe the bird as lazy or dim-witted. In fact, tava'e are probably as industrious and intelligent as your average bird. Their awkwardness results from the fact that their legs and feet are tiny for the size of the bird, and are placed far back on the body. Thus, all tava'e can do on land is to shuffle along, bumping their powerful chest muscles on the ground. Luckily for them, tava'e spend little time on land.

They typically nest high in rainforest trees, preferring protected sites such as large hollows or clumps of ferns or other plant material. Here they lay a single large egg. At hatching, the young tropicbird is one of the cutest of all baby birds -- a completely round ball of silvery fluff. As they grow, they molt into their juvenile plumage, with black and white barred feathers across their back. This is their appearance when they leave the nest on their first flight toward the sea, often a mile or more away. The fledglings often seem to have problems with this flight, based on the number of young tava'e that are brought in to our office, unable to fly. These youngsters are usually very gentle, and with several days of feeding with sardines or other fish, they often regain their strength and are able to fly away.

Tava'e are master fishermen, making plunging dives for squid and a variety of small fish. One of their favorites are flying fish -- I've often wondered whether they catch the flying fish in the air or while they're swimming. The tava'e is well known to Samoan fishermen, who watch its behavior at sea to help them locate schools of masimasi and other fish. The tava'e is important to human fishermen for another reason: its feathers are prized for fishing lures. The gleaming white breast feathers are tied to hooks and used to attract malau (squirrelfish) and other fish. It is a traditional belief that only feathers from living birds stay dry and shiny after repeated use, and it was a badge of honor for a Samoan youth to climb a tava'e nesting tree and pluck out the plumes. This supplied a lure while causing no harm to the birds.

Our next seabird, the manu sina or manusina (also called the white tern or common fairy tern) is perhaps Samoa's most familiar bird. At almost any time of day you can lift your eyes to the mountains and see these pure white birds circling effortlessly over the green forest. I recommend contemplation of this lovely sight to anyone feeling burned out by the noise and ugliness that sometimes surround us at eye level. It's always a nice reminder of the beauty of the natural Samoan environment.

The manu sina is found throughout the tropical oceans of the world and seems able to adapt to human-altered landscapes better than do many seabirds.

Our seabirds are a diverse group. Some, such as shearwaters and petrels (ta’i’o), are rarely seen, but nest in burrows on the tops of mountains like Lata and Pioa. Their eerie calls can be heard at night in places such as Afono Pass. Others like frigatebirds (atafa) and boobies (fua'o) are seen flying around our coasts, but nest on the high cliffs of Pola or in trees on the remote north side of Tutuila. The tern family has many different looking birds living here, including the solid black and brown noddies (gogo), the beautiful blue-grey noddy (laia), the white tern (manu sina), and the grey-backed tern (gogo sina). Here we will discuss the three most common and conspicuous seabirds of Tutuila: the tava'e, manu sina, and gogo.

The islands of Samoa are true oceanic islands: they are not riders on the skirts of any continent, but are the tops of huge mountains, rising up through the great ocean depths. Surrounded as they are by thousands of square miles of ocean, it is not surprising that the Samoan Islands have more kinds of seabirds than any other type of native wildlife. In all, 20 species of seabirds are known to nest in Samoa (and many more can be seen passing through our area), compared to 18 kinds of resident landbirds and only three kinds of mammals (all bat species).