The Pacific Missile Range Facility at Barking Sands has adopted a new colony of burrow-nesting wedge-tailed shearwaters that recently has taken up nesting near the middle of the west Kaua'i Navy base.

The handling of the comparatively secretive bird, roughly the size of a slim pigeon, is quite different from the base's response to a persistent small colony of Laysan albatross. The albatross are large birds — they can have wingspans of 6 feet — that sweep across the base runways during the day. As a result, the Navy has been trying to move the colony to the other side of the island.

But with the shearwaters, flying is mostly at night and tends to involve a direct flight between the colony and the open ocean, with little aerial lingering.

Missile range officials say that the adoption process has included changes at the base to protect and support the bird colony.

The Navy's Johnny Michael said the service has fenced a 1-acre area around the colony, both to keep the birds from expanding their range too much and to keep predators such as feral cats away from the chicks and adults.

In areas where the sandy soil is likely to cause burrows to collapse, workers under the guidance of field biologist Vanessa Pepi, of the Pearl Harbor Naval Facilities Engineering Command Pacific, have installed plastic pipes that can serve as artificial burrows. Shearwaters are using them.

Alien vegetation has been removed with the help of the Kaua'i Invasive Species Committee, and native vegetation is being planted.

"The sanctuary is protected and enhanced, while co-existing successfully on a military facility," said range environmental coordinator John Burger.

Base personnel also retrofitted their outdoor lighting with hoods, directing the lights downward to prevent confusing the seabirds, which can be disoriented by upward- and outward-shining lights.

The wedge-tailed shearwater nests in burrows near the shore, as opposed to its cousin, the Newell's shearwater, which nests in burrow colonies in the mountains. The island has long had a program to save Newell's shearwaters confused by street lights, stadium lights and hotel lighting. Fledgling birds on their first flights from their colonies to the sea sometimes crash to earth near such lights or fly into utility lines and cables.

The Save Our Shearwaters program, which is working with the missile range on its birds, has urged the development of shielded outdoor lighting islandwide.

If you have a question or concern about the Hawaiian environment, drop a note to Jan TenBruggencate at P.O. Box 524, Lihu'e, HI 96766 or jant@honoluluadvertiser.com. Or call him at (808) 245-3074.