Bird Checklists for 672 Melanesian Islands

Annotated island checklists with full referencing for Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, and the Melanesian portions of Indonesia & Australia.

VANUATU Aerodramus vanikorensis	NEW CALEDONIA Turdus poliocephalus	SOLOMON ISLANDS Hirundo tahitica	PAPUA NEW GUINEA Ptilonorhynchus cerviniventris	INDONESIA Pitta sordida
AUSTRALIA Cracticus mentalis – sunning itself		Island Checklists Paramythia montium		Latest Updates Goura victoria

INTRODUCTION

Besides listing birds for each island, annotations on their residence status (Whether resident all year, or Summer, Winter, Spring/Autumn) or Migrant (and which season), Ecological Preferences and Abundance are provided where known.  Most books and research papers on birds in the South Pacific have concentrated on the land and freshwater birds and so there is less detail available for seabirds and shorebirds.  The books of Mayr; Mayr & Diamond; Beehler, Pratt & Zimmerman; Bregulla; Hannecart & Letocart; Hadden; and Delacour are the major book sources used.  However, the majority of the references are original research papers. The annotations usually clarify any certainties recorded for an island and sometimes report uncertainties.

Working on this project exposed the fallacy that scientific names are stable and have worldwide usage.  Many birds of the South Pacific have had up to six or more scientific names.  Many of the islands also have five or six names.  To help make sense of this potential for serious mistakes and to save you the hard work of sorting it all out for yourself I have made two spreadsheets: Alternate Names for Melanesian Birds and

Alternate Melanesian Island Names

All files are in PDF format which means that once you click on one it will start to download to your computer.  Most files are only 10-20 K and the largest is only 96 K so should not be a problem to anyone.  The island lists for individual birds is 6.9 Meg and may take a while to download. For a copy of the PAU checklist click Pacific Adventist University Checklist PAU is 14 miles out of Port Moresby on the road to the Sogeri Plateau, Varirata National Park, and the Kokoda Trail.

I lay no claim to these lists being perfect – they were developed as a reference for my Ornithology students at Pacific Adventist University and as a personal tool.  If you want to offer corrections, additions or suggestions feel free to contact me at (please re-type address)

It is my plan to continue updating these lists. I hope you find them useful.

Mike Tarburton

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I thank: Rori O’Brien, & Wayne Longmore for their pleasant and expert help in locating papers in the ornithological and general libraries of the National Museum in Melbourne; Birds Australia for access to their library; Charles Collins of the University of California (Long Beach) for copies of papers in his possession; Thane Pratt for copies of his field Trip reports; Don Hadden for information on islands he visited and all those whose names appear in the Sources column of the island lists.