The Mariana’s, Day 9 — Guam

We returned to Guam on December 26, 2023, after spending our final night in Saipan in style at the Coral Ocean Resort. We had booked the short flight on a United Airlines jet for about $300 each. Before returning our rental car we drove around to the Saipan airport pond for one last attempt to see the Common Greenshank that had been reported there in recent days. We got excited when a shorebird flew in but it turned out to be Wood Sandpiper, the most common sandpiper wintering on the island.

United Airlines’ procedures were slow and cumbersome compared to STAR Marianas airline. And because CNMI and Guam are different countries, we needed to go through customs inspections. So the short flight took up much of the morning.

My friend Tom Hall, who had accompanied me in Gambell (Alaska) in June, had worked in Guam years ago and he informed his colleagues there of my Biggest Year project. They recommended that I contact Martin Kastner. I emailed him and he responded with some general guidance about birding In the region and an offer to help find our target species. He offered to join us for birding December 26, 2023. He was waiting for us at the airport when we arrived at 10:30 AM.

Martin was a great birding guide. We headed south from the airport following the coast. In the harbor area, we found a Black-naped Tern. From the harbor, we crossed the island to the east shore, where we visited Jeff’s Pirate Cove restaurant for lunch. Birding the grounds didn’t turn up much: Black-bellied Plover, Pacific Reef Heron, Yellow Bittern. Next we visited the Layon Landfill where we found Pacific Golden-Plover, Wood Sandpiper, Green-winged Teal and Northern Pintail. We searched some grassland habitat for Blue-breasted Quail but found none of these tiny introduced quail. We heard the call of another exotic species introduced to Guam for hunting, the Black Francolin. We ended the day by hiring a boat for $200 to take us to tiny Cocos Island, about a mile offshore. Here we found Micronesian Starling and Guam Rail (USA and Territories Year Bird number 876).

Martin is a Doctoral Candidate with Virginia Tech University, working on recovery of critically endangered bird species. He developed a nest box for the Micronesian Starling that has positively impacted the recovery of that native population on Guam. He also coordinates a volunteer effort to control brown tree snakes on Cocos Island which had greatly benefited the population of Guam Rail there.

After birding all day with Martin, we met his beautiful wife and young daughter (Mel and Nora) and some of his friends (all of whom were involved with endangered species studies) at a popular pub. The building next to the outdoor seating area hosted a huge mural of the Guam Rail.

At sunrise the next morning, I boarded the first of three United Airlines jets that would take me half way around the globe to Boston where I would have one more chance to find Dovekie before the end of the year. Nick Jr. headed the opposite direction to Japan where he would celebrate his 30th birthday.

Special thanks to Martin Kastner for spending the day with us and providing so much other useful information to us throughout our trip to Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.

Errata: I reported Kentish Plover during my initial visit to Guam on December 19, 2023. After consultation with Martin, I need to change the ID to Siberian Sand-Plover. So this reduces my year bird total by 1. I increased my total by 3 after identifying Stejneger’s Petrel and Leach’s Storm-Petrel from photographs taken October 22, 2023, (special thanks to Peter Pyle for corroborating those two identifications)  and changing “Shearwater species” to Audubon’s Shearwater, observed from the ferry between Key West, FL and the Dry Tortugas on May 8, 2023. So my Biggest Year total was 878, still a daunting 22 birds short of my lofty goal of 900 species.