The measurements of the redpoll (Carduelis flammea) in Canterbury, New Zealand, were investigated. Variation in plumage colour are compared with study skins and published data for British redpolls. New Zealand and British redpolls are shown to differ and it is suggested that differences may be due to ‘founder effect’ rather than ‘hybridisation’ between two or more introduced races, as had previously been postulated. The occurrence of light-coloured plumage was more common in males. Females showed a much wider range of poll colour.
From available records ranging from systematic surveys to casual observations, the known distribution of Buller’s shearwater (Puffinus bulleri) in the North Pacific Ocean is described. The birds arrive in subarctic waters in June and slowly expand northward and eastward as far as the Gulf of Alaska by August. The mid-ocean distribution after August is poorly known, but many birds, presumably non-breeders, are along the west coast of North America, at least from British Columbia to southern California, until late October-early November. Numbers observed along this coast have increased since the mid-1960s.
I investigated the relationship between floods on the riverbed breeding grounds of wrybills (Anarhynchus frontalis) and the number of wrybills censused on northern harbours the following summer. For the purposes of the study I assumed that most birds oversummering on northern harbours are first-year non-breeders and that flood flows of the Rakaia River are representative of most other wrybill breeding rivers. A highly significant negative correlation (r2=0.69; p<0.01) existed for the 1968-1982 period. The study’s findings provide some support for the observation that by the early 1960s the wrybill population, after many years of growth, had begun to stabilise. Serious flooding in the 1982 and 1983 breeding seasons may have again destabilised the population structure.
A wreck of long-tailed skuas (Stercorarius longicaudus) on North Island beaches in early 1983 is reported. Characters used to identify long-tailed and Arctic skuas in the hand are reviewed with reference to New Zealand material. It is suggested that there may have been several New Zealand records of long-tailed skuas before the first accepted specimen record in 1964. The importance of retaining all small skuas found on New Zealand beaches for critical examination is emphasised. The 1983 wreck may be related to the 1982/83 El Nino, which apparently caused a reduction of food for at least some seabird species.