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[[Image:Magnificent_Frigatebird.jpg|thumb|550px|right|Photo by Ian Jeanneret]] | [[Image:Magnificent_Frigatebird.jpg|thumb|550px|right|Photo by Ian Jeanneret]] | ||
==Description== | ==Description== | ||
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The Magnificent Frigatebird (Fregata magnificens) was sometimes previously known as Man O'War, reflecting its rakish lines, speed, and aerial piracy of other birds. | The Magnificent Frigatebird (Fregata magnificens) was sometimes previously known as Man O'War, reflecting its rakish lines, speed, and aerial piracy of other birds. | ||
Revision as of 16:01, 20 May 2007
- Fregata magnificens
Description
The Magnificent Frigatebird (Fregata magnificens) was sometimes previously known as Man O'War, reflecting its rakish lines, speed, and aerial piracy of other birds.
It is widespread in the tropical Atlantic, breeding colonially in trees in Florida, the Caribbean and Cape Verde Islands. It also breeds along the Pacific coast of the Americas from Mexico to Ecuador including the Galapagos Islands.
It has occurred as a vagrant on the Isle of Man in 1998 and in Denmark and Spain. A male was found exhausted at Whitchurch, Shropshire, many miles from the sea, in November 2005. This individual was taken to Chester Zoo but died a few days later.
The Magnificent Frigatebird is 100 cm (39 inches) long with a 215 cm (85 inch) wingspan. Males are all black with a scarlet throat pouch which is inflated like a balloon in the breeding season. Although the feathers are black, the scapular feathers are iridescent and produce a purple colour when they refract sunlight. Females are black, but have a white breast and lower neck sides, a brown band on the wings and a blue eye ring. Immature birds have a white head and underparts.
This species is very similar to the other Frigatebirds and is similarly sized to all but the Lesser Frigatebird. However, it lacks a white axillary spur, and juveniles show a distinctive diamond-shaped belly patch.
The Magnificent Frigatebird is silent in flight, but makes various rattling sounds at its nest.
This species feeds mainly on fish, and also attacks other seabirds to force them to disgorge their meal. Frigatebirds never land on water, and always take their food items in flight.
Discussion:
Frigatebirds, also called man-o'-war-birds, are among the most agile of birds on the wing. They have the largest wingspread in proportion to weight of any bird. In addition to stealing fish from other seabirds, their most famous method of obtaining food, they can soar for hours and often dip down to the surface to pick fish and other marine animals from the water, or skim past a breeding colony of boobies to snatch young birds from their nests. Frigatebirds never alight on the ground or water; their short legs and narrow wings make it difficult for them to take off except from a height, such as the limb of a tree or a rock. Magnificent Frigatebirds do not nest on the Pacific Coast of the United States, but those that wander northward to California (and casually to southern Alaska), probably come from colonies on islands off the western coast of Mexico.
Identification
Photographed in Santa Cruz, Galapagos.
Magnificent Frigatebird
Found commonly in tropical western Atlantic and eastern Pacific both coastal and pelagic. Often seen flying low over water, at other times soaring sky-high. Feeds by plucking morsels from the surface or by chasing other birds including terns, gulls, and boobies, forcing them to disgorge their food. Has a distinct quality of "flying dinosaur".
Originally posted by njlarsen
