Nesting success of the red-tailed tropicbird on Kure Atoll / by Robert R. Fleet

Abstract

I studied the breeding cycle of the Red-tailed Tropicbird (Phaethon rubricauda) on Kure Atoll, Hawaii, between March 1964 and August 1965. Kure is a low, volcanic-coral atoll at the northwestern end of the Hawaiian Island chain, approximately 1,890 km northwest of Honolulu, at coordinates 28 ø 25' N and 178 ø 10' W. Green Island, the only stable land mass within the atoll, is situated in the southeastern quadrant of the lagoon, about 400 m inside the reef. The island is crescent-shaped, with the axis of the crescent curving from north to southwest. It is 2.29 km in length along this axis, 0.60 km wide at its widest point, and about 86.67 ha in area. The sand dunes of the western (lagoon) beach have the highest elevation on the island, reaching 7.5 m above sea level. My study area (approximately 0.58 ha) was the southwesternmost sand dune on Green Island. In this dune, sand has accumulated to a maximum depth of 1 m above the surrounding areas and is capped with Scaevola taccadae thickets that sometimes reach 2 m in height.