Red-tailed Tropicbirds are NOT Songbirds

FOAM has had a lot of posts about albatross.  As of today, July 20, there have been a total of 29 albatross posts.  That's okay.  After all, FOAM means Friends of Albatross on Midway.

But there are other birds here as well.  I have sort of a "love-hate" relationship with the Red-tailed Tropicbirds.  I love how beautiful they are.  Look at these pictures of adult RTTR.  What a glossy white bird, with striking black feathers around the eye!  And isn't that a beautiful red bill?  If you look closely at the top picture and the one to the right left-hand picture, which shows an adult resting in the native `Akulikuli (Sea Purslane, Sesuvium portulacastrum), you can see the red tail-feather that's present only during mating season.  After mating season the feather falls off.

But I hate the Tropicbird's call.  If you get too close to one of these birds it screams at you with a really loud, raspy squawk.  The video below was taken from the porch of Midway Atoll's Clipper House, a lovely place where our meals are served.  If you look closely, you'll see the famous circular mating flight of some RTTR in the distance.  They fly in a vertical circle: flying up toward the sky, then backwards, then down toward the ocean, forward, and then repeat.  (I know, I know; you wish I would zoom in on those white specks that are birds!  I have a really, really simple camera, and if I use the zoom, the video gets fuzzy.)  The good thing about the video is its audio, which gives you an ear-full from the Red-tailed Tropicbirds sailing overhead.  They definitely are not songbirds!


Strange Flight of the Tropicbirds from Barb Mayer on Vimeo.