Bird Watching & Snorkeling
In Christmas Island, watching a flock of seabirds feeding can be very exciting. Thousands can be attracted in a few minutes to an area where tuna are feeding. As the surface of the sea appears to boil with jumping fish and squid, the birds swoop down to catch them. The brown and black noddies hover close to the surface and pick up tiny fish and squid, while the white and sooty terns just fly above them and occasionally swoop down to pick up larger fish that break the surface. Higher still, the larger tropic birds and boobies wait and watch before diving with half-closed wings into the sea. After a successful dive a booby or tropicbird will swallow its catch as quickly as possible before a frigate bird gets a chance to rob it. The frigate birds can and do catch fish for themselves but can often be seen chasing other birds.
Our guides are experts in locating these burrows without disturbing their nesting inhabitants so that our guests can get that "National Geographic" shot they have always been dreaming of. Red-footed boobies, frigate birds and black noddies all build substantial nests in trees and do not make a nest. Instead they carefully balance their eggs in a fork of two branches, or in a niche on a large horizontal branch. Our guides will teach you how to carefully approach these nesting birds so that you can come within just feet and not scare them away.
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Christmas
Island is one of the most important breeding places for seabirds
in the tropical oceans. Altogether eighteen different species,
use the island. Some like brown boobies and crested terns are present
year round and seldom venture out of sight of land. Others like
sooty terns and wedge-tailed shearwaters come only to breed; for
the rest of the year they live far out in the oceans. 
Since
they cannot lay their eggs on their feeding grounds they have to
use the land to lay their eggs and rear their young. Christmas
Island can be accurately described as one of the world's largest
seabird sanctuaries with a total of 9 designated protected zones
for seabird nesting sites. Cook Island alone is the host of the
world's largest breeding colony of sooty terns with 1.5 million
birds nesting on it. Crested, Sooty and Grey-backed terns, blue-grey
noddies and masked boobies all lay their eggs on the ground within
these designated protected zones making no proper nest. Red tailed
tropicbirds, brown boobies and brown noddies also lay their eggs
on the ground but gather twigs and leaves into a simple nest. The
shearwaters and petrels nest in burrows in soft sand or under coral
rocks. 
In Christmas
Island, all species lay only one egg except for brown and masked
boobies who lay two eggs but rarely raise these two. Because Christmas
Island is close to the equator, there are no seasons and some seabirds
are able to breed throughout the year. Sooty terns breed twice
a year, once in June and again in December. During these months,
bird watchers can be amazed by the enormous clouds of mating terns
that form just over head (don`t forget your hats!). On the other
hand, frigate birds take so long to complete their breeding cycle
that they can nest only every two years. However, on Christmas
Island a nesting frigate bird can always be found by our guides
during a day of bird watching. The birds that can be found in Christmas
island include: phoenix shearwaters, wedge-tailed shearwaters,
christmas shearwaters, audubon's shearwaters, polynesian storm
petrels, red-tailed tropicbirds, masked boobies, brown boobies,
great frigate birds, red-footed boobies, lesser frigate birds,
great crested terns, grey backed terns, sooty terns, brown noddies
black noddies, blue-gray noddies, and white terns. 
There
is only one resident land bird which is a christmas island warbler
and is found no where else in the world. All of our guides are
trained in wildlife conservation and bird identification by the
local Kiribati Ministry of Wildlife and Conservation. Bird watching
is typically combined with lunch and optional snorkeling in a shallow
area around Cook Island as a day activity, however, locations may
vary depending on the type of bird species that you are looking
for. All of our bird watching tours are also escorted by a local
conservation officer to ensure that you get the best experience
possible without disturbing the local environment.
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