Abstract
Information collected on birds found in Kita-daito and Minami-daito Islands before World War II revealed records of 85 species, and ambiguous records of 14 species. In the two islands, local populations of the Buzzard Buteo buteo and the Wren Troglodytes troglodytes are considered to be endemic subspecies. However, the absence of information about breeding of these two species before WWII leaves open the possibility that these populations may be other subspecies. The environment of the Daito Islands has changed greatly since reclamation started in 1900, and since that time all seabirds and four species of land birds have become extinct there, and four species have become newly established. The number of the current resident species is 13, which is the same number as that just before the reclamation, which suggests that the resident avifauna may have restabilized.
