page_title: Kiritimati
section_title: Birds
hierarchical_section_title: Kiritimati / Ecology / Birds
caption_attribution_description: Red-footed Booby Sula sula (Brown Morph) on Tern Island, French Frigate Shoals, Hawaii
context_page_description: Kiritimati or Christmas Island is a Pacific Ocean coral atoll in the northern Line Islands. It is part of the Republic of Kiribati. Its Gilbertese name is the rendition of the English word "Christmas" according to its sounds, in which the combination ti is pronounced s, and the name is thus pronounced.
  The island has the greatest land area of any coral atoll in the world, about 388 square kilometres; its lagoon is roughly the same size. The atoll is about 150 km in perimeter, while the lagoon shoreline extends for over 48 km. Kiritimati comprises over 70% of the total land area of Kiribati, a country encompassing 33 Pacific atolls and islands.
  It lies 232 km north of the Equator, 2,160 km south of Honolulu, and 5,360 km from San Francisco. Kiritimati Island is in the world's farthest forward time zone, UTC+14, and is one of the first inhabited places on Earth to experience the New Year. Despite being 2,460 km east of the 180 meridian, a 1995 realignment of the International Date Line by the Republic of Kiribati moved Kiritimati to west of the dateline.
  Nuclear tests were conducted on and around Kiritimati by the United Kingdom in the late 1950s, and by the United States in 1962.
context_section_description: More than 35 bird species have been recorded from Kiritimati. As noted above, only the bokikokiko (Acrocephalus aequinoctialis), perhaps a few Rimitara lorikeets (Vini kuhlii) – if any remain at all – and the occasional eastern reef egret (Egretta sacra) make up the entire landbird fauna. About 1,000 adult bokikokikos are to be found at any date, but mainly in mixed grass/shrubland away from the settlements.
  On the other hand, seabirds are plentiful on Kiritimati, and make up the bulk of the breeding bird population. There are 18 species of seabirds breeding on the island, and Kiritimati is one of the most important breeding grounds anywhere in the world for several of these:
  Phaethontiformes
  Eastern red-tailed tropicbird (Phaethon rubricauda melanorhynchus) – important breeding colony; 8,000 birds before the 1982/83 decline, fewer than 3,000 in 1984
  Charadriiformes
  Micronesian black noddy (Anous minutus marcusi) – 20,000 birds before the 1982/83 decline
  Little white tern (Gygis microrhyncha) – 8,000 birds before the 1982/83 decline
  Central Pacific sooty tern (Onychoprion fuscatus oahuensis) – largest breeding colony in the world; around 7,000,000 birds before the 1982/83 decline
  Spectacled tern (Onychoprion lunatus) – important breeding colony; 6,000 birds before the 1982/83 decline
  Central blue-grey noddy (Procelsterna cerulea cerulea) – important breeding colony, possibly the largest worldwide of this subspecies; 4,000 birds before the 1982/83 decline
  Procellariiformes
  Polynesian storm petrel (Nesofregetta fuliginosa) – important breeding colony; 1,000 birds before the 1982/83 decline
  Phoenix petrel (Pterodroma alba) – largest breeding colony in the world; 24,000 birds before the 1982/83 decline
  Christmas shearwater (Puffinus nativitatis) – largest subpopulation worldwide on Motu Upua; 12,000 birds before the 1982/83 decline
  Wedge-tailed shearwater (Puffinus pacificus) – among the very largest breeding colonies in the world; about 1,000,000 birds before the 1982/83 decline
  Pelecaniformes
  Indopacific lesser frigatebird (Fregata ariel ariel) – important breeding colony; 9,000 birds before the 1982/83 decline
  Central Pacific great frigatebird (Fregata minor palmerstoni) – important breeding colony; 12,000 birds before the 1982/83 decline, 6,500 afterwards
  Austropacific masked booby (Sula dactylatra personata) – important breeding colony; 3,000 birds before the 1982/83 decline
  Indopacific red-footed booby (Sula sula rubripes) – 12,000 birds before the 1982/83 decline
  Kiritimati's lagoon and the saltflats are a prime location for migratory birds to stop over or even stay all winter. The most commonly seen migrants are ruddy turnstone (Arenaria interpres), Pacific golden plover (Pluvialis fulva), bristle-thighed curlew (Numenius tahitiensis) and wandering tattler (Tringa incana); other seabirds, waders and even dabbling ducks can be encountered every now and then. Around 7 October (± 5 days), some 20 million sooty shearwaters pass through here en route from the North Pacific feeding grounds to breeding sites around New Zealand.
  See also "Extinction" below.
caption: Brown-morph red-footed booby. Those on Kiritimati will reuse nests for several years, unlike in most other colonies.
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