The Mariana’s, Day 4

On Thursday December 21, 2023, Nick Jr. and I returned to the north end of Saipan. It is a small island so we arrived in 20 minutes, just before sunrise. Here we first heard and then saw our target, the Micronesian Megapode, a terrestrial forest bird named for its large feet (Year -Bird number 865). eBird uses the name Micronesian Scrubfowl. We found a singing Saipan Reed-Warbler (866) near Suicide Cliff.  Then at the nearby landfill we found a good variety of shorebirds at the settling pond: Wood Sandpiper, Sharp-tailed Sandpiper, Common Sandpiper. Eurasian Moorhen was a new Year-Bird  (867). We then birded our way back to the airport at the south end of the island. We were determined to find a better view of the catchment pond. Eventually we found a better viewpoint. We found a Whiskered Tern over the  pond. Not only a year-bird (868) but also a life bird for both of us! We ended our birding day at Garapan Harbor where we located an overwintering Siberian Sand-plover (new name for Lesser Sand-plover). I had already seen this beauty on May 31 at Nome, Alaska. I pondered whether it could be the same individual bird, now molted into basic (non-breeding) plumage.

We had dinner with Nathan Johnson, a biologist and eBirder who has lived on Saipan for 21 years. We enjoyed learning about the tricks to finding the local birds, and he enjoyed hearing about my Biggest Year project. 

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