Mark O'Brien

BirdLife International · Pacific Partnership Secretariat, Suva, Fiji.

Recognizing the imperative to evaluate species recovery and conservation impact, in 2012 the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) called for development of a “Green List of Species” (now the IUCN Green Status of Species). A draft Green Status framework for assessing species’ progress toward recovery, published in 2018, proposed 2 s...

Wailagilala is one of two ‘true’ atolls in Fiji. Our findings confirm the presence of nesting green turtle (Chelonia mydas); continued occurrence of breeding seabird populations, including documenting the fifth site in Fiji of nesting white tern (Gygis alba); and provides data on coral genera and benthic cover.

The Tahiti monarch is a critically endangered bird species endemic to the island of Tahiti. In 1998, when a conservation program started, its range was restricted to four valleys, with 19 birds living in accessible lower valleys. In one of these valleys, a remote population located upstream of a series of waterfalls was present but, was first prote...

This paper documents the catastrophic decline of the ‘Critically Endangered’ Fatu Hiva Monarch Pomarea whitneyi since 2000 and presents population dynamics and conservation actions for the species between 2008 and 2017. The Fatu Hiva Monarch conservation programme has prevented the extinction of the species thus far. However, after an initial incre...

Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBAs) are sites identified as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations on the basis of an internationally agreed set of criteria. We present the first review of the development and spread of the IBA concept since it was launched by BirdLife International (then ICBP) in 1979 and examine...

After compiling a historical list of 158 species of birds known to occur in Palau, the Palau Bird Records Committee accepted 10 first records of new occurrences of bird species: the Common Pochard (Aythya ferina), Black-faced Spoonbill (Platalea minor), Chinese Pond Heron (Ardeola bacchus), White-breasted Waterhen (Amaurornis phoenicurus), Eurasian...

Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, Wallacea, and the islands of the Pacific Ocean collectively possess 42% of the world’s parrot species, including half of all Critically Endangered species. We used comparative methods to review the factors related to extinction risk of 167 extant and 5 extinct parrot species from this region, subsequently referre...

We studied the breeding biology of Tahiti Monarch Pomarea nigra , a ‘Critically Endangered’ forest bird endemic to Tahiti (French Polynesia). Nest activity was monitored from 1998 to 2002, and again from 2008 to 2015. During these 12 years, only 2–13 breeding pairs per year produced hatchlings. Egg-laying occurred all year, but usually increased be...

Nocturnal surveys for collared petrel (Pterodroma brevipes) indicate significant variation in the number of birds reported by site, time of year, and survey method. Collared petrels were recorded at 3 new islands within Fiji in 2011. These records indicate that locating collared petrels requires focussed survey effort, although they do not definiti...

Habitat associations of farmland birds are well studied, yet few have considered relationships between species distribution and soil properties. Charadriiform waders (shorebirds) depend upon penetrable soils, rich in invertebrate prey. Many species, such as the Northern Lapwing Vanellus vanellus, have undergone severe declines across Europe, despit...

Bird observations were made in the Vava’u Group from 13 to 26 February 2014. ■ Twenty sites were visited, six on ’Uta Vava’u and 13 on other islands. Ten other islands were observed while passing by boat. Automatic bird recorders were set out at a few sites to supplement the team’s observations. Five days of boat surveys were carried out at sea alo...

Capsule Population response of breeding waders to agri-environment management varied between management options and species; implementation has been on too small a scale to reverse national population declines.Aims To test whether numbers of five breeding wader species have shown a more positive response between 1992 and 2005, at sites with appropr...

Snipe Gallinago gallinago breeding on lowland wet grasslands in England have undergone widespread and dramatic declines in abundance and distribution since at least the 1970s. There are many potential drivers of the decline but reductions in habitat quality, driven by land management, are often proposed as a contributing factor in the historical de...

Aim To provide updated counts of the number and distribution of singing male Corncrakes in Britain and describe the implementation of schemes in which land management was modified to benefit Corncrakes.

Recent surveys have generated population estimates for 5 species of breeding waders on farmed land in Scotland. There have been no comparable surveys of the Scottish uplands, even though this habitat represents around 50% of total land area in Scotland. Surveys of selected sites have, however, been undertaken. The statistical relationship between w...

This study considers the selection of sites based on the densities of breeding waders that would be considered to be distributed widely across common habitats in Scotland: so-called ‘wider countryside’ species. Five methods to provide a hierarchical classification of sites are assessed. Fifty percent of the populations of redshank (Tringa totanus)...

Vanuatu megapode at a communal nesting area, Buwoma Beach, Ambrym Summary

Breeding birds, vegetation and moorland management were surveyed in 320 1‐km squares on 122 estates in upland areas of eastern Scotland and northern England where red grouse shooting is a widespread land use. We assessed whether population densities of 11 species of breeding birds differed between heather‐dominated moorland managed for red grouse s...

The 2000 breeding wader survey covered 38 sites within three of the key wader areas, Lough Neagh/Beg, Upper and Lower Lough Erne. The method of fieldwork and analysis generally followed those described in O’Brien and Smith (1992), with the exception of curlew which utilised Grant et al. (2000). Data from past surveys were re-examined for standardis...

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Edinburgh, 2001.

A randomly selected sample of sites surveyed in 1982 for the Breeding Waders of Wet Meadows survey was re-visited in 2989 and information on numbers of breeding waders collected. This showed that over this period numbers of Lapwings Vanellus vanellus had declined significantly by 38%, whilst Oystercatchers Haematopus ostralegus had increased by 56%...

http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C11143003