Bird Island (Massachusetts)

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For other places with the same name, see Bird Island (disambiguation).

Bird Island is a tiny island in Buzzards Bay at the mouth of Sippican Harbor, less than a mile off the mainland coast of the town of Marion, Massachusetts (USA).

Contents [hide] 1 Landmarks 2 Flora and fauna 3 See also 4 Sources 5 External links

[edit] Landmarks

The only landmarks on Bird Island are a flagpole and an historic 36-foot (11 m)-high lighthouse. Bird Island Light was formerly manned but now runs automatically. The hurricane of September 21, 1938, caused widespread destruction all along the south coast of New England. High tide in the evening of the hurricane was 14 feet (4.3 m) above normal. The great storm swept away every building on Bird Island except the lighthouse tower.

[edit] Flora and fauna

Bird Island is notable as a sanctuary and major breeding ground of the Roseate Tern, a bird from which the island gained its name.

[edit] See also

• Islands of Massachusetts

[edit] Sources

• The Standard Times newspaper of New Bedford Massachusetts.
• Rhode Island, Massachusetts & New Hampshire Maptech Embassy Guide

  Nihoa Millerbird

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  Nihoa Millerbird
  Conservation status
  Critically Endangered (IUCN 3.1)
  Scientific classification
  Kingdom:	Animalia
  Phylum:	Chordata
  Class:	Aves
  Order:	Passeriformes
  Family:	Acrocephalidae
  Genus:	Acrocephalus
  Species:	A. familiaris
  Subspecies:	A. f. kingi
  Trinomial name
  Acrocephalus familiaris kingi (Wetmore, 1923)

  The Nihoa Millerbird (Acrocephalus familiaris kingi) is a subspecies of the Millerbird. It gets its name from its preferred food, the Miller moth. The five-inch long Millerbird has dark, sepia-colored feathers, white belly, and dark beak. Its geographic range is limited to the tiny island of Nihoa in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. The Nihoa Millerbird is one of the two endemic birds remaining on Nihoa, the other being the Nihoa Finch.
  Only 200– 900 Nihoa Millerbirds persist on the island, making the species seriously endangered. It is always at risk of extinction from environmental changes (droughts, fires, insect population irruptions), because flight away from the island would likely prove fatal. The Laysan Millerbird, now extinct, was closely related.[1]
  The trinomial commemorates Samuel Wilder King, captain of the Tanager Expedition and later Governor of Hawaii.
  

  [edit] References

  • U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
  • BirdLife Species Factsheet

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