Back on Longboat Key, Florida, I was birding along Sarasota Bay this morning, watching American white pelicans, red-breasted mergansers, double-crested cormorants, brown pelicans and laughing gulls feast on the recovering fish population (see Birdlife after the Red Tide) when a prehistoric figure soared in from the Gulf; it was a magnificent frigatebird, the first I have seen this year.
Spending most of their lives at sea, these marine aerialists snatch fish from the ocean surface, scavenge refuse from fishing boats or steal prey from other sea birds. Visiting subtropical and tropical bays throughout the year, they only land during the summer breeding season when they gather in colonies on mangrove islands. Ill equipped to maneuver on land and unable to rise from the ocean surface, they do not swim and cannot walk; rather, they must wait for winds to takeoff from their mangrove perch. Each pair raises one chick per year and the female provides food for its first year of life.
Though I have seen large flocks of magnificent frigatebirds in the past, a lone winter wanderer is especially inspiring, knowing that he has been aloft for six months or more, often sleeping as he soars above the warm but turbulent waters of tropical and subtropical seas. The fact that he often steals his meal does not diminish my admiration.
Spending most of their lives at sea, these marine aerialists snatch fish from the ocean surface, scavenge refuse from fishing boats or steal prey from other sea birds. Visiting subtropical and tropical bays throughout the year, they only land during the summer breeding season when they gather in colonies on mangrove islands. Ill equipped to maneuver on land and unable to rise from the ocean surface, they do not swim and cannot walk; rather, they must wait for winds to takeoff from their mangrove perch. Each pair raises one chick per year and the female provides food for its first year of life.
Though I have seen large flocks of magnificent frigatebirds in the past, a lone winter wanderer is especially inspiring, knowing that he has been aloft for six months or more, often sleeping as he soars above the warm but turbulent waters of tropical and subtropical seas. The fact that he often steals his meal does not diminish my admiration.
