Joan Axthelm's List: Frigate Bird

• Characteristics

•  Diet

    The magnificent frigatebird eats small fish, squid, jellyfish and crustaceans. It may also take young turtles, birds and eggs.
• It is about three feet in length and has a wingspan of over seven feet.
• large black bird.
• Life Cycle
• In the breeding season, males have a bright red throat pouch.
• It takes about 50 days for the chick to hatch.
• in the tropical Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
• The magnificent frigatebirds is an excellent flyer and glider.
• Habitat
• It often chases and snatches other food while in the air.
• The magnificent frigatebird lives on ocean coasts and islands.

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• Frigate Bird, or Man-o'-War Bird, a large, long-winged seabird related to the pelicans.
• noted for speed and aggressiveness.
• It grows to 40 inches (1 m) in length, including its 17-inch (43-cm) deeply forked tail, and may have a wingspread of 7 feet (2.1 m). Its five-inch (13-cm) bill is sharply hooked at the tip.
• They seldom enter the water.

  • seldom: not very often, never
• They are noted for their habit of attacking smaller birds such as gannets and terns, forcing them to disgorge food, which the frigate birds snap up in mid-air.

  • Gannets & terns are kinds of birds.
    Disgorge: throw up, vomit
• The female lays a single white egg in an untidy nest of sticks set between rocks or in low bushes. The parents take turns guarding the egg, and later, the nestling, because other frigate birds might eat the egg or nestling.

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• Physical characteristics:

  Magnificent frigatebirds are the largest of the frigatebirds, with a length of 41 to 44 inches
• (104 to 112 centimeters)
• from bill to tail, and they weigh between 3.1 and 3.3 pounds
• They have such short legs that they cannot walk on land or swim on the water,
• The adult female has a white breast and some brown feathers on the top of her wings. The adult male has a mostly black body with a red throat sac.
• Their wingspan is 85 to 91 inches
• their forked tails help them steer.
• islands in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans near North and
• South America
• Habitat
• tropical island with mangroves or other trees and bushes for nesting surrounded by an ocean full of flying fish.
• feed on flying fish that they catch in the air up to 6 or more feet
• above the surface of the ocean.
• Diet:
• They also eat other small fish, as well as squid, young turtles, crabs, and jellyfish.
• Sometimes they steal the prey of other seabirds in midair.
• Behavior and reproduction: Magnificent frigatebirds never land on water, except accidentally.
• they spend their daytime hours in the air, and they perch in bushes or on tree braches when they roost each night.
• Strong winds do not bother them—they can even ride out a hurricane in flight.
• At breeding time
• It takes the males about twenty-five minutes to blow up their red "balloons."
• Each female lays just one egg, and she will take care of this young bird for more than a year. For about two months, the parents take turns sitting on the egg.
• Young frigatebirds practice catching food on the wing by dropping feathers and seaweed.
• Magnificent frigatebirds and people:

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• They are amongst the most photographed birds in Galapagos.

• FRIGATE BIRDS
• They are large (almost 6 feet/1.8 m. wingspan), lightweight and have a long, hooked beak to catch fish without getting wet.
• Frigates have an easier way to get food: stealing from other Galapagos birds, specially red-footed boobies (this is, naturally, a survival strategy).

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• The frigate is considered a seabird and lives away from land, however, they are not waterproof like most other seabirds.
•   This means they tend to stay out of the water. 
• Earlier this week I had mentioned that finding food on the Galapagos Islands can be difficult.  Well, the frigate has solved this problem by being a modern day pirate of the bird world. No, I dont mean they have a wooden leg and wear an eye patch.  They simply wait until other birds have caught food and they go and steal it from them.  They intimidate smaller birds while swooping into catch the food that has been dropped. These bullies of the sky will also steal nesting material from other birds. I guess anything goes when it comes to survival. 

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• Male frigate birds use their gular sac — a large throat bag — to attract female counterparts.
• Frigate birds are sometimes considered “pirate birds” as they harass other birds — especially Boobies — into dropping fish the other birds have caught.