123-473: Phaethon phoenicuros Gmelin 1789 Phaëthon novae-hollandiae Brandt, 1840 The red-tailed tropicbird ( Phaethon rubricauda ) is a seabird native to tropical parts of the Indian and Pacific Oceans . One of three closely related species of tropicbird (Phaethontidae), it was described by Pieter Boddaert in 1783. Superficially resembling a tern in appearance, it has almost all-white plumage with
246-447: A murre colony. In most seabird colonies, several different species will nest on the same colony, often exhibiting some niche separation . Seabirds can nest in trees (if any are available), on the ground (with or without nests ), on cliffs, in burrows under the ground and in rocky crevices. Competition can be strong both within species and between species, with aggressive species such as sooty terns pushing less dominant species out of
369-401: A wreck . Seabirds have had a long association with both fisheries and sailors , and both have drawn benefits and disadvantages from the relationship. Fishermen have traditionally used seabirds as indicators of both fish shoals , underwater banks that might indicate fish stocks, and of potential landfall. In fact, the known association of seabirds with land was instrumental in allowing
492-401: A "bare" or "naked" name, which cannot be accepted as it stands. A largely equivalent but much less frequently used term is nomen tantum ("name only"). Sometimes, " nomina nuda " is erroneously considered a synonym for the term " unavailable names ". However, not all unavailable names are nomina nuda . According to the rules of zoological nomenclature a nomen nudum is unavailable ;
615-466: A black mask and a red bill. The sexes have similar plumage. As referenced in the common name, adults have red tail streamers that are about twice their body length. Four subspecies are recognised, but there is evidence of clinal variation in body size—with smaller birds in the north and larger in the south—and hence no grounds for subspecies. The red-tailed tropicbird eats fish—mainly flying fish and squid—after catching them by plunge-diving into
738-650: A chick, but had not seen since, which had come back to breed on the island. In New Zealand territory it breeds on the Kermadec Islands . Elsewhere in the Pacific it breeds in Fiji , New Caledonia , French Polynesia , Hawaii—with a large colony on Kure Atoll—the Cook Islands , Pitcairn Island , and islands off Japan and Chile. There are large breeding colonies on Europa , Aldabra and Christmas Island in
861-618: A clade, the Aequornithes either became seabirds in a single transition in the Cretaceous or some lineages such as pelicans and frigatebirds adapted to sea living independently from freshwater-dwelling ancestors. In the Paleogene both pterosaurs and marine reptiles became extinct, allowing seabirds to expand ecologically. These post-extinction seas were dominated by early Procellariidae , giant penguins and two extinct families ,
984-543: A colony. Eggers from San Francisco took almost half a million eggs a year from the Farallon Islands in the mid-19th century, a period in the islands' history from which the seabird species are still recovering. Both hunting and egging continue today, although not at the levels that occurred in the past, and generally in a more controlled manner. For example, the Māori of Stewart Island / Rakiura continue to harvest
1107-465: A day, generally around midday. They are constantly brooded by the parents until they are a week old, after which time they are sheltered under the parents’ wings. They also rise up and gape at any nearby bird for food. Both parents feed the young, by shoving its beak into the chick's gullet and then regurgitating food. Initially covered with grey or white down, they grow their first feathers—scapulars—at 16–20 days. Their feet and beaks grow rapidly, outpacing
1230-426: A description or a definition of the taxon that it denotes, or by an indication [that is, a reference to such a description or definition]. … 13.1. To be available, every new name published after 1930 must … be accompanied by a description or definition that states in words characters that are purported to differentiate the taxon, or be accompanied by a bibliographic reference to such a published statement. According to
1353-486: A fashion similar to grebes and loons (using its feet to move underwater) but had a beak filled with sharp teeth. Flying Cretaceous seabirds do not exceed wingspans of two meters; any sizes were taken by piscivorous pterosaurs . While Hesperornis is not thought to have left descendants, the earliest modern seabirds also occurred in the Cretaceous, with a species called Tytthostonyx glauconiticus , which has features suggestive of Procellariiformes and Fregatidae. As
SECTION 10
#17327934615831476-402: A few metres of the water, while making sharp cackling calls. Initially flying in small groups, birds then pair off to repeat the display in pairs before bonding. Once pairs have established a nest, they do not perform the display. The timing of breeding depends on location; in some places, birds breed in a defined breeding season, whereas in others, there is none. South of the equator, the latter
1599-451: A great deal of time in their young. Most species nest in colonies , varying in size from a few dozen birds to millions. Many species are famous for undertaking long annual migrations , crossing the equator or circumnavigating the Earth in some cases. They feed both at the ocean's surface and below it, and even on each other. Seabirds can be highly pelagic , coastal, or in some cases spend
1722-971: A large number of non-governmental organizations (including BirdLife International , the American Bird Conservancy and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds ). This led to the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels , a legally binding treaty designed to protect these threatened species, which has been ratified by thirteen countries as of 2021 (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, France, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, South Africa, Spain, Uruguay, United Kingdom). Many seabirds are little studied and poorly known because they live far out at sea and breed in isolated colonies. Some seabirds, particularly
1845-532: A light blue-grey base, and grey legs and feet. In Australian waters the red-tailed tropicbird could be confused with the silver gull ( Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae ) or various tern species, though it is larger and heavier-set, with a wedge-shaped tail. Its red bill and more wholly white wings distinguish it from the adult white-tailed tropicbird. Immature red-tailed tropicbirds likewise can be distinguished from immature white-tailed tropicbirds by their partly red rather than yellow bills. The red-tailed tropicbird
1968-570: A lineage— Eurypygimorphae —that is a sister group to the Aequornithes. Seabirds, by virtue of living in a geologically depositional environment (that is, in the sea where sediments are readily laid down), are well represented in the fossil record. They are first known to occur in the Cretaceous period, the earliest being the Hesperornithiformes , like Hesperornis regalis , a flightless loon-like seabird that could dive in
2091-587: A million birds have been recorded, both in the tropics (such as Kiritimati in the Pacific ) and in the polar latitudes (as in Antarctica ). Seabird colonies occur exclusively for the purpose of breeding; non-breeding birds will only collect together outside the breeding season in areas where prey species are densely aggregated. Seabird colonies are highly variable. Individual nesting sites can be widely spaced, as in an albatross colony, or densely packed as with
2214-693: A part of the year away from the sea entirely. Seabirds and humans have a long history together: They have provided food to hunters , guided fishermen to fishing stocks, and led sailors to land. Many species are currently threatened by human activities such as oil spills , nets, climate change and severe weather. Conservation efforts include the establishment of wildlife refuges and adjustments to fishing techniques. There exists no single definition of which groups, families and species are seabirds, and most definitions are in some way arbitrary. Elizabeth Shreiber and Joanna Burger, two seabird scientists, said, "The one common characteristic that all seabirds share
2337-414: A place for returning mates to reunite, and reduces the costs of prospecting for a new site. Young adults breeding for the first time usually return to their natal colony, and often nest close to where they hatched. This tendency, known as philopatry , is so strong that a study of Laysan albatrosses found that the average distance between hatching site and the site where a bird established its own territory
2460-438: A reduced capacity for powered flight and are dependent on a type of gliding called dynamic soaring (where the wind deflected by waves provides lift) as well as slope soaring. Seabirds also almost always have webbed feet , to aid movement on the surface as well as assisting diving in some species. The Procellariiformes are unusual among birds in having a strong sense of smell , which is used to find widely distributed food in
2583-431: A rocky crevice, or under a shrub. Because the red-tailed tropicbird does not walk well, it lands by flying into the wind, stalling and dropping to the ground. The nest is often located within one metre (3.3 ft) of the edge of the shrub (or other shaded area) to minimise walking distance. The tropicbird often chooses shrubs with fewer stems for accessibility. The species is territorial to a degree, aggressively defending
SECTION 20
#17327934615832706-520: A severe problem on Norfolk Island. Rats have been a serious problem on Kure Atoll, causing heavy losses. Yellow crazy ants were discovered on Johnston Atoll in the north Pacific Ocean in 2010, hordes of which overrun nesting areas and can blind victims with their spray. Also on Johnston Atoll, the Johnston Atoll Chemical Agent Disposal System (JACADS) was burning stockpiled chemical weapons until 2000. It
2829-461: A smaller layer of air (compared to other diving birds) but otherwise soak up water. This allows them to swim without fighting the buoyancy that retaining air in the feathers causes, yet retain enough air to prevent the bird losing excessive heat through contact with water. The plumage of most seabirds is less colourful than that of land birds, restricted in the main to variations of black, white or grey. A few species sport colourful plumes (such as
2952-575: A source of increasing concern to conservationists. The bycatch of seabirds entangled in nets or hooked on fishing lines has had a big impact on seabird numbers; for example, an estimated 100,000 albatrosses are hooked and drown each year on tuna lines set out by long-line fisheries. Overall, many hundreds of thousands of birds are trapped and killed each year, a source of concern for some of the rarest species (for example, only about 2,000 short-tailed albatrosses are known to still exist). Seabirds are also thought to suffer when overfishing occurs. Changes to
3075-403: A vast ocean, and help distinguish familiar nest odours from unfamiliar ones. Salt glands are used by seabirds to deal with the salt they ingest by drinking and feeding (particularly on crustaceans ), and to help them osmoregulate . The excretions from these glands (which are positioned in the head of the birds, emerging from the nasal cavity ) are almost pure sodium chloride . With
3198-400: A very variable prey source); this may be a reason why it arises more frequently in seabirds. There are other possible advantages: colonies may act as information centres, where seabirds returning to the sea to forage can find out where prey is by studying returning individuals of the same species. There are disadvantages to colonial life, particularly the spread of disease. Colonies also attract
3321-430: A wingspan of 111 to 119 cm (44 to 47 in). It has a streamlined but solid build with almost all-white plumage , often with a pink tinge. The sexes are similar in plumage. A dark brown comma-shaped stripe extends back from the lores , through and over the eyes and reaching the ear coverts . The iris is dark brown. The bill is bright red, slightly paler at the base and black around the nostrils. The legs and base of
3444-458: A year, unless they lose the first (with a few exceptions, like the Cassin's auklet ), and many species (like the tubenoses and sulids ) will only lay one egg a year. Care of young is protracted, extending for as long as six months, among the longest for birds. For example, once common guillemot chicks fledge , they remain with the male parent for several months at sea. The frigatebirds have
3567-851: Is classified as near threatened , due to unexpected declines in some populations, the impact of humans, and the yellow crazy ant overrunning Christmas Island. It is listed as vulnerable in New South Wales. Predators recorded in Western Australia include large raptors such as the white-bellied sea eagle ( Haliaeetus leucogaster ) and the eastern osprey ( Pandion cristatus ); while silver gulls, and crows and ravens ( Corvus spp.) raid nests for eggs and young. Vagrant red-billed tropicbirds ( P. aethereus ) have been implicated in egg loss of nests in Hawaii. Feral dogs and cats prey on nesting birds on Christmas Island, while feral cats are
3690-407: Is energetically inefficient in warmer waters. With their poor flying ability, many wing-propelled pursuit divers are more limited in their foraging range than other guilds. Gannets , boobies , tropicbirds , some terns, and brown pelicans all engage in plunge diving, taking fast-moving prey by diving into the water from the flight. Plunge diving allows birds to use the energy from the momentum of
3813-404: Is generally silent while flying. Aside from during courtship displays, birds may give a short greeting squawk to their mate when arriving or leaving the nest. Birds give a low growling call as a defence call, and young chatter repetitively as a begging call—made whenever the parents are nearby. The red-tailed tropicbird ranges across the southern Indian, and western and central Pacific Oceans, from
Red-tailed tropicbird - Misplaced Pages Continue
3936-642: Is inconclusive. Some plunge divers (as well as some surface feeders) are dependent on dolphins and tuna to push shoaling fish up towards the surface. This catch-all category refers to other seabird strategies that involve the next trophic level up. Kleptoparasites are seabirds that make a part of their living stealing food of other seabirds. Most famously, frigatebirds and skuas engage in this behaviour, although gulls, terns and other species will steal food opportunistically. The nocturnal nesting behaviour of some seabirds has been interpreted as arising due to pressure from this aerial piracy. Kleptoparasitism
4059-474: Is likely due to activity levels, as the air temperature during these times does not differ significantly with a bird in the nest. After flying, the average body temperature is 40.9 °C (105.6 °F). The temperature of the feet is always lower than that of the body temperature during flight, but always higher than the air temperature. Thus, the feet are likely used to dissipate heat during flight. The red-tailed tropicbird's tail streamers were highly prized by
4182-460: Is likely to be true. On islands near the equator, laying usually occurs from June to November, the majority of chicks fledging around January to February. On Christmas Island, breeding takes place at different times on different parts of the island due to prevailing weather conditions. Some birds may remain at the breeding site year-round. On sub-tropical Lady Elliott Island off Queensland, they nest in winter, which scientists think may be timed to avoid
4305-545: Is not thought to play a significant part of the diet of any species, and is instead a supplement to food obtained by hunting. A study of great frigatebirds stealing from masked boobies estimated that the frigatebirds could at most obtain 40% of the food they needed, and on average obtained only 5%. Many species of gull will feed on seabird and sea mammal carrion when the opportunity arises, as will giant petrels . Some species of albatross also engage in scavenging: an analysis of regurgitated squid beaks has shown that many of
4428-402: Is often a problem as well—visitors, even well-meaning tourists, can flush brooding adults off a colony, leaving chicks and eggs vulnerable to predators. The build-up of toxins and pollutants in seabirds is also a concern. Seabirds, being apex predators , suffered from the ravages of the insecticide DDT until it was banned; DDT was implicated, for example, in embryo development problems and
4551-496: Is paler on the head. The lores are bare. The down is greyer in older chicks. The primaries, rectrices and scapulars are evident in the third week, and chicks are mostly feathered with residual down on underparts and under the wings after six weeks, and fully feathered by 11 weeks. Juvenile birds have a glossy white forehead, chin, throat and underparts, and prominent black barring and scaling on their crown, nape, mantle, back, rump and upper wing coverts. Their bills are blackish grey with
4674-487: Is punished for killing an albatross by having to wear its corpse around his neck. Sailors did, however, consider it unlucky to touch a storm petrel, especially one that landed on the ship. Nomen nudum In taxonomy , a nomen nudum ('naked name'; plural nomina nuda ) is a designation which looks exactly like a scientific name of an organism, and may have originally been intended to be one, but it has not been published with an adequate description. This makes it
4797-489: Is some evidence of this, the effects of seabirds are considered smaller than that of marine mammals and predatory fish (like tuna ). Some seabird species have benefited from fisheries, particularly from discarded fish and offal . These discards compose 30% of the food of seabirds in the North Sea , for example, and compose up to 70% of the total food of some seabird populations. This can have other impacts; for example,
4920-783: Is that they feed in saltwater ; but, as seems to be true with any statement in biology, some do not." However, by convention all of the Sphenisciformes (penguins) and Procellariiformes ( albatrosses and petrels ), all of the Suliformes ( gannets and cormorants ) except the darters , and some of the Charadriiformes (the gulls , skuas , terns , auks and skimmers ) are classified as seabirds. The phalaropes are usually included as well, since although they are waders ("shorebirds" in North America), two of
5043-589: Is the skimmer , which has a unique fishing method: flying along the surface with the lower mandible in the water—this shuts automatically when the bill touches something in the water. The skimmer's bill reflects its unusual lifestyle, with the lower mandible uniquely being longer than the upper one. Surface feeders that swim often have unique bills as well, adapted for their specific prey. Prions have special bills with filters called lamellae to filter out plankton from mouthfuls of water, and many albatrosses and petrels have hooked bills to snatch fast-moving prey. On
Red-tailed tropicbird - Misplaced Pages Continue
5166-448: Is the deepest diver of the shearwaters, having been recorded diving below 70 metres (230 ft). Some albatross species are also capable of limited diving, with light-mantled sooty albatrosses holding the record at 12 metres (40 ft). Of all the wing-propelled pursuit divers, the most efficient in the air are the albatrosses, and they are also the poorest divers. This is the dominant guild in polar and subpolar environments, but it
5289-421: Is thought to be monogamous, pairs remaining bonded over successive breeding seasons, although such information as age at first breeding and pair-formation is not known. It nests in loose colonies, on offshore islands and stacks, rocky cliffs, coral atolls and cays. It rarely nests on large bodies of land, though has done so in southern Western Australia. The nest itself is a shallow scrape , in either shaded sand or
5412-615: The IUCN on account of its large range of up to 20 thousand square kilometres (7,700 sq mi). The population in the eastern Pacific has been estimated to be as high as 80,000 birds with a minimum of 41,000 birds. Around 9,000 birds breed on Europa Island, and 9,000–12,000 breed on the Hawaiian islands. Human presence generally affects the species adversely, by the destruction of habitat or introduction of pests. Within Australia, it
5535-715: The Pelagornithidae and the Plotopteridae (a group of large seabirds that looked like the penguins). Modern genera began their wide radiation in the Miocene , although the genus Puffinus (which includes today's Manx shearwater and sooty shearwater ) might date back to the Oligocene . Within the Charadriiformes, the gulls and allies ( Lari ) became seabirds in the late Eocene, and then waders in
5658-817: The Planches Enluminées . The genus name is derived from Ancient Greek phaethon , "sun", while the species epithet comes from the Latin words ruber "red" and cauda "tail". English ornithologist John Latham wrote about the red-tailed tropicbird in 1785 in his General Synopsis of Birds , recording it as common in Mauritius and the South Pacific. He also reported a black-billed tropicbird collected from Palmerston Island that ended up in Banks' collection. Latham did not give them binomial names, however. It
5781-648: The Polynesians to locate tiny landmasses in the Pacific. Seabirds have provided food for fishermen away from home, as well as bait. Famously, tethered cormorants have been used to catch fish directly. Indirectly, fisheries have also benefited from guano from colonies of seabirds acting as fertilizer for the surrounding seas. Negative effects on fisheries are mostly restricted to raiding by birds on aquaculture , although long-lining fisheries also have to deal with bait stealing. There have been claims of prey depletion by seabirds of fishery stocks, and while there
5904-435: The houndfish ( Tylosurus crocodilus ), and unidentified members of Hemiramphidae , Scombridae , and Carangidae . The purpleback flying squid ( Sthenoteuthis oualaniensis ) was by far the most common cephalopod eaten, followed by the common blanket octopus ( Tremoctopus violaceus ). A field study in Hawaii found flying fish dominated the prey species, the tropical two-wing flyingfish ( Exocoetus volitans ) and members of
6027-455: The marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution , as the same environmental problems and feeding niches have resulted in similar adaptations. The first seabirds evolved in the Cretaceous period , and modern seabird families emerged in the Paleogene . Seabirds generally live longer, breed later and have fewer young than other birds, but they invest
6150-677: The millinery trade reached industrial levels. Muttonbirding (harvesting shearwater chicks) developed as important industries in both New Zealand and Tasmania, and the name of one species, the providence petrel , is derived from its seemingly miraculous arrival on Norfolk Island where it provided a windfall for starving European settlers. In the Falkland Islands , hundreds of thousands of penguins were harvested for their oil each year. Seabird eggs have also long been an important source of food for sailors undertaking long sea voyages, as well as being taken when settlements grow in areas near
6273-487: The native Hawaiians koaʻe ʻula . Its closest relative is the white-tailed tropicbird ( P. lepturus ), the split between their ancestors taking place about four million years ago. Four subspecies are recognised by the IOC: The ornithologist Mike Tarburton reviewed the known subspecies in 1989 and concluded that none were valid, noting that there was a clinal change in size in the species: those from Kure Atoll in
SECTION 50
#17327934615836396-419: The razorbill (an Atlantic auk) requires 64% more energy to fly than a petrel of equivalent size. Many shearwaters are intermediate between the two, having longer wings than typical wing-propelled divers but heavier wing loadings than the other surface-feeding procellariids , leaving them capable of diving to considerable depths while still being efficient long-distance travellers. The short-tailed shearwater
6519-481: The shearwaters and gadfly petrels). Surface feeders in flight include some of the most acrobatic of seabirds, which either snatch morsels from the water (as do frigate-birds and some terns), or "walk", pattering and hovering on the water's surface, as some of the storm-petrels do. Many of these do not ever land in the water, and some, such as the frigatebirds, have difficulty getting airborne again should they do so. Another seabird family that does not land while feeding
6642-481: The tertials , and the dark shafts of the primary flight feathers are visible. The pink tinge is often more pronounced in the remiges of the upper wing. Moulting takes place outside the breeding season, the streamers being replaced before the rest of the feathers. Streamers are replaced at any time, one growing while the other is shed, and old streamers may litter the area around a breeding colony. Newly hatched chicks are covered in thin, long, grey-white down , which
6765-715: The 22 °C (72 °F) summer surface isotherm. The birds disperse widely after breeding. Evidence suggests birds in the Indian Ocean follow prevailing winds westwards, young individuals banded in Sumatra and Sugarloaf Rock, Western Australia , being recovered at Mauritius and Réunion respectively. Banding on Kure Atoll suggests birds in the North Pacific disperse in an easterly direction, following prevailing winds there. Strong winds can blow them inland on occasions, which explains some sighting records away from
6888-526: The Antarctic mainland, are unlikely to find anything to eat around their breeding sites. The marbled murrelet nests inland in old growth forest , seeking huge conifers with large branches to nest on. Other species, such as the California gull , nest and feed inland on lakes, and then move to the coasts in the winter. Some cormorant, pelican , gull and tern species have individuals that never visit
7011-579: The Arctic tern; birds that nest in New Zealand and Chile and spend the northern summer feeding in the North Pacific off Japan, Alaska and California, an annual round trip of 64,000 kilometres (40,000 mi). Other species also migrate shorter distances away from the breeding sites, their distribution at sea determined by the availability of food. If oceanic conditions are unsuitable, seabirds will emigrate to more productive areas, sometimes permanently if
7134-726: The Austral summer in Antarctica. Other species also undertake trans-equatorial trips, both from the north to the south, and from south to north. The population of elegant terns , which nest off Baja California , splits after the breeding season with some birds travelling north to the Central Coast of California and some travelling as far south as Peru and Chile to feed in the Humboldt Current . The sooty shearwater undertakes an annual migration cycle that rivals that of
7257-631: The Australian east coast. It also nests at Ashmore Reef and Rottnest Island off Western Australia , as well as Sugarloaf Rock at Cape Naturaliste and Busselton on the Western Australian coastline itself. It is an occasional visitor to Palau , breeding being recorded from the Southwest Islands , and was first recorded from Guam in 1992. It is an uncommon vagrant to New Zealand proper, where it has been recorded from
7380-625: The East African coast to Indonesia, the waters around the southern reaches of Japan, across to Chile, and the Hawaiian Islands , where they are more common on the northwestern islands. It frequents areas of ocean with water temperatures from 24 to 30 °C (75 to 86 °F) and salinity under 35% in the southern hemisphere and 33.5% in the northern hemisphere. In the Pacific Ocean, the southern boundary of its range runs along
7503-607: The Indian Ocean, with smaller colonies in Madagascar , where it nests on the tiny island of Nosy Ve, the Seychelles , and Mauritius . It is also found on the Australian territory of Cocos (Keeling) Islands in the Indian Ocean. The warm waters of the Leeuwin Current facilitate the species nesting at Cape Leeuwin in southwestern Australia, yet is only a rare visitor to New South Wales at corresponding latitudes on
SECTION 60
#17327934615837626-553: The Maori. The Ngāpuhi tribe of the Northland Region would look for and collect them off dead or stray birds blown ashore after easterly gales, trading them for greenstone with tribes from the south. English naturalist Andrew Bloxam reported that the feathers were valued in Hawaii, where the locals would pull them off the birds as they nested. The red-tailed tropicbird is classified as a least-concern species according to
7749-511: The North Pacific being the smallest; ranging to those from the Kermadec Islands in the South Pacific being the largest. He also noted that the pink colouration was more intense in new plumage and faded after a few years in museum specimens. The red-tailed tropicbird measures 95 to 104 cm (37 to 41 in) on average, which includes the 35 cm (14 in) tail streamers , and weighs around 800 g (30 oz). It has
7872-556: The UK was the Scottish Seabird Centre , near the important bird sanctuaries on Bass Rock , Fidra and the surrounding islands. The area is home to huge colonies of gannets, puffins , skuas and other seabirds. The centre allows visitors to watch live video from the islands as well as learn about the threats the birds face and how we can protect them, and has helped to significantly raise the profile of seabird conservation in
7995-480: The UK. Seabird tourism can provide income for coastal communities as well as raise the profile of seabird conservation, although it needs to be managed to ensure it does not harm the colonies and nesting birds. For example, the northern royal albatross colony at Taiaroa Head in New Zealand attracts 40,000 visitors a year. The plight of albatross and large seabirds, as well as other marine creatures, being taken as bycatch by long-line fisheries, has been addressed by
8118-404: The air. During incubation, foraging trips are relatively long, with an average excursion taking about 153 hours. These trips are to very productive areas. After the chicks hatch, on the other hand, the parents adopt a strategy where one takes long trips (these averaging about 57 hours) for self feeding, and the other takes short trips (about three hours long) to feed the chicks. The bimodality of
8241-467: The albatrosses and gulls, are more well known to humans. The albatross has been described as "the most legendary of birds", and have a variety of myths and legends associated with them. While it is widely considered unlucky to harm them, the notion that sailors believed that is a myth that derives from Samuel Taylor Coleridge 's famous poem, " The Rime of the Ancient Mariner ", in which a sailor
8364-452: The attention of predators , principally other birds, and many species attend their colonies nocturnally to avoid predation. Birds from different colonies often forage in different areas to avoid competition. Like many birds, seabirds often migrate after the breeding season . Of these, the trip taken by the Arctic tern is the farthest of any bird, crossing the equator in order to spend
8487-454: The bird is young. After fledging, juvenile birds often disperse further than adults, and to different areas, so are commonly sighted far from a species' normal range. Some species, such as the auks, do not have a concerted migration effort, but drift southwards as the winter approaches. Other species, such as some of the storm petrels, diving petrels and cormorants, never disperse at all, staying near their breeding colonies year round. While
8610-548: The chick for a few hours at a time, while the other makes much longer trips to feed themselves. This bird is considered to be a least-concern species according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), though it is adversely affected by human contact. Rats and feral cats prey on eggs and young at nesting sites. The bird's tail streamers were once prized by some Hawaiian and Maori peoples. The British naturalist Sir Joseph Banks encountered
8733-486: The chicks of the sooty shearwater as they have done for centuries, using traditional stewardship, kaitiakitanga , to manage the harvest, but now also work with the University of Otago in studying the populations. In Greenland , however, uncontrolled hunting is pushing many species into steep decline. Other human factors have led to declines and even extinctions in seabird populations and species. Of these, perhaps
8856-452: The coast and their preferred habitats. Johnston Atoll It is the world's largest colony of red-tailed tropicbirds, with 10,800 nests in 2020. In the Pacific area, it nests on the Australian offshore territories of Norfolk and Lord Howe Islands , and on Queensland 's coral islands (including Raine Island and Lady Elliot Island ). In mid-2020 Australian scientists found a bird on Lady Elliott Island that they had banded 23 years earlier as
8979-541: The common breeding times of most migratory species of seabird, such as the noisy Wedge-tailed Shearwater (mutton bird). Not much is yet known about their habits though. The female red-tailed tropicbird lays one egg, which both parents incubate for 42 to 46 days. The male generally takes the first turn on the egg after it is laid. Ranging from 5.4 to 7.7 centimetres (2.1 to 3.0 in) long (averaging between 6.3 and 6.8 centimetres (2.5 and 2.7 in), depending on location) and 4.5 to 4.8 centimetres (1.8 to 1.9 in) wide,
9102-453: The definition of seabirds suggests that the birds in question spend their lives on the ocean, many seabird families have many species that spend some or even most of their lives inland away from the sea. Most strikingly, many species breed tens, hundreds or even thousands of miles inland. Some of these species still return to the ocean to feed; for example, the snow petrel , the nests of which have been found 480 kilometres (300 mi) inland on
9225-414: The diet of birds there to be mostly fish by mass but equal numbers of fish and squid caught. Fish recorded include the mirrorwing flyingfish ( Hirundichthys speculiger ) and spotfin flyingfish ( Cheilopogon furcatus ) and several other unidentified species of the flying fish family Exocoetidae, the pompano dolphinfish ( Coryphaena equiselis ) and common dolphinfish ( C. hippurus ), needlefish including
9348-451: The disease have scarred digestive tracts from ingesting plastic waste . "When birds ingest small pieces of plastic, they found, it inflames the digestive tract. Over time, the persistent inflammation causes tissues to become scarred and disfigured, affecting digestion, growth and survival." The threats faced by seabirds have not gone unnoticed by scientists or the conservation movement . As early as 1903, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt
9471-456: The dive to combat natural buoyancy (caused by air trapped in plumage), and thus uses less energy than the dedicated pursuit divers, allowing them to utilise more widely distributed food resources, for example, in impoverished tropical seas. In general, this is the most specialised method of hunting employed by seabirds; other non-specialists (such as gulls and skuas) may employ it but do so with less skill and from lower heights. In brown pelicans,
9594-413: The earliest instances known is in southern Chile, where archaeological excavations in middens has shown hunting of albatrosses, cormorants and shearwaters from 5000 BP. This pressure has led to some species becoming extinct in many places; in particular, at least 20 species of an original 29 no longer breed on Easter Island . In the 19th century, the hunting of seabirds for fat deposits and feathers for
9717-404: The exception of the cormorants and some terns, and in common with most other birds, all seabirds have waterproof plumage . However, compared to land birds, they have far more feathers protecting their bodies. This dense plumage is better able to protect the bird from getting wet, and cold is kept out by a dense layer of down feathers . The cormorants possess a layer of unique feathers that retain
9840-676: The feathers resist abrasion. Seabirds evolved to exploit different food resources in the world's seas and oceans, and to a great extent, their physiology and behaviour have been shaped by their diet . These evolutionary forces have often caused species in different families and even orders to evolve similar strategies and adaptations to the same problems, leading to remarkable convergent evolution , such as that between auks and penguins. There are four basic feeding strategies, or ecological guilds, for feeding at sea: surface feeding, pursuit diving, plunge-diving, and predation of higher vertebrates ; within these guilds, there are multiple variations on
9963-475: The first time in over a hundred years. Seabird mortality caused by long-line fisheries can be greatly reduced by techniques such as setting long-line bait at night, dying the bait blue, setting the bait underwater, increasing the amount of weight on lines and by using bird scarers, and their deployment is increasingly required by many national fishing fleets. One of the Millennium Projects in
10086-478: The frequency of breeding failures due to unfavourable marine conditions, and the relative lack of predation compared to that of land-living birds. Because of the greater investment in raising the young and because foraging for food may occur far from the nest site, in all seabird species except the phalaropes, both parents participate in caring for the young, and pairs are typically at least seasonally monogamous . Many species, such as gulls, auks and penguins, retain
10209-486: The genus Cypselurus prominent, followed by squid of the family Ommastrephidae including the purpleback flying squid and the glass squid ( Hyaloteuthis pelagica ), and carangid fish including the shortfin scad ( Decapterus macrosoma ). The red-tailed tropicbird has also been recorded eating porcupinefish (Diodontidae), although adults have been troubled when the victim fish inflates resulting in it being urgently regurgitated. A strong flyer with large mouth and bill,
10332-502: The glossary of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature gives this definition: nomen nudum (pl. nomina nuda ), n. A Latin term referring to a name that, if published before 1931, fails to conform to Article 12; or, if published after 1930, fails to conform to Article 13. […] And among the rules of that same Zoological Code: 12.1. To be available, every new name published before 1931 must … be accompanied by
10455-411: The lack of knowledge about its habits and populations means that they don't know how much environmental changes are affecting its populations. Their study includes taking DNA samples , banding new chicks and fitting birds with satellite trackers , in a bit to find out more about their movements. Seabird Seabirds (also known as marine birds ) are birds that are adapted to life within
10578-477: The length of foraging trips is likely to be because it is the optimal balance of self-feeding and provisioning for chicks. On Christmas Island, birds generally forage far out to sea in the early morning and closer to shore in the afternoon. Squid and flying fish make up a large portion of this bird's diet, along with some crustaceans, depending on location. Fieldwork in the Mozambique Channel revealed
10701-468: The longest period of parental care of any bird except a few raptors and the southern ground hornbill , with each chick fledging after four to six months and continued assistance after that for up to fourteen months. Due to the extended period of care, breeding occurs every two years rather than annually for some species. This life-history strategy has probably evolved both in response to the challenges of living at sea (collecting widely scattered prey items),
10824-408: The marine ecosystems caused by dredging, which alters the biodiversity of the seafloor, can also have a negative impact. The hunting of seabirds and the collecting of seabird eggs have contributed to the declines of many species, and the extinction of several, including the great auk and the spectacled cormorant . Seabirds have been hunted for food by coastal peoples throughout history—one of
10947-580: The middle Miocene ( Langhian ). The highest diversity of seabirds apparently existed during the Late Miocene and the Pliocene . At the end of the latter, the oceanic food web had undergone a period of upheaval due to extinction of considerable numbers of marine species; subsequently, the spread of marine mammals seems to have prevented seabirds from reaching their erstwhile diversity. Seabirds have made numerous adaptations to living on and feeding in
11070-490: The most desirable nesting spaces. The tropical Bonin petrel nests during the winter to avoid competition with the more aggressive wedge-tailed shearwater . When the seasons overlap, the wedge-tailed shearwaters will kill young Bonin petrels in order to use their burrows. Many seabirds show remarkable site fidelity , returning to the same burrow, nest or site for many years, and they will defend that site from rivals with great vigour. This increases breeding success, provides
11193-552: The most serious are introduced species . Seabirds, breeding predominantly on small isolated islands, are vulnerable to predators because they have lost many behaviours associated with defence from predators. Feral cats can take seabirds as large as albatrosses, and many introduced rodents, such as the Pacific rat , take eggs hidden in burrows. Introduced goats, cattle, rabbits and other herbivores can create problems, particularly when species need vegetation to protect or shade their young. The disturbance of breeding colonies by humans
11316-498: The name P. rubicauda roseotinctus to Rothschild's P. rubicauda erubescens . "Red-tailed tropicbird" has been designated the official name by the International Ornithologists' Union (IOC). Other common names include red-tailed bos'nbird or silver bos'nbird, the names derived from the semblance of the tail feathers to a boatswain's marlin spikes, and strawtail. The New Zealand Māori call it amokura , and
11439-450: The nest site and pecking radius around it, commencing around three months before breeding. Birds are more aggressive at crowded colonies, where numbers are large or suitable nest sites less common. They adopt a defence posture, which consists of raising the humeri up and bringing the wrists together, drawing the neck into the body and shaking the head sideways, fluffing up the head feathers and squawking. Bill-jabbing and fights can break out,
11562-433: The northern reaches of North Island, especially Three Kings Islands . It is a very rare vagrant to North America, with records from California and Vancouver Island . The red-tailed tropicbird is a strong flyer, and walks on land with difficulty using a shuffling gait. They can hover in midair by flying into the wind; pairs may even fly backwards and circle each other during courtship displays. The red-tailed tropicbird
11685-428: The ocean lead to decreased availability of food and colonies are more often flooded as a consequence of sea level rise and extreme rainfall events. Heat stress from extreme temperatures is an additional threat. Some seabirds have used changing wind patterns to forage further and more efficiently. In 2023, plasticosis , a new disease caused solely by plastics, was discovered in seabirds. The birds identified as having
11808-402: The ocean. Nesting takes place in loose colonies on oceanic islands; the nest itself is a scrape found on a cliff face, in a crevice, or on a sandy beach. A single egg is laid, then is incubated by both sexes for about six weeks. The parents make long food-foraging trips of about 150 hours during incubation, but once the chick has hatched, the parents specialize their foraging: one forages for
11931-461: The original use of P. erubescens was a nomen nudum . He concluded that the populations of Lord Howe , Norfolk and Kermadec Islands belonged to a distinct subspecies which he named P. rubicauda erubescens , due to their larger overall size, more robust bill and prominent reddish tinge to their plumage. He also classified P. melanorhynchus and P. novae-hollandiae as juveniles. The Australian amateur ornithologist Gregory Mathews then applied
12054-841: The other hand, most gulls are versatile and opportunistic feeders who will eat a wide variety of prey, both at sea and on land. Pursuit diving exerts greater pressures (both evolutionary and physiological) on seabirds, but the reward is a greater area in which to feed than is available to surface feeders. Underwater propulsion is provided by wings (as used by penguins, auks, diving petrels and some other species of petrel) or feet (as used by cormorants, grebes , loons and several types of fish-eating ducks ). Wing-propelled divers are generally faster than foot-propelled divers. The use of wings or feet for diving has limited their utility in other situations: loons and grebes walk with extreme difficulty (if at all), penguins cannot fly, and auks have sacrificed flight efficiency in favour of diving. For example,
12177-420: The oval eggs are pale tan with brown and red-black markings that are more prominent on the larger end. Born helpless and unable to move around ( nidicolous and semi- altricial ), the chicks are initially blind, opening their eyes after 2–3 days. Until they are a week old, they open their beak only upon touch, so the parents have to stroke the base of the bill to initiate feeding. Feeding takes place once or twice
12300-399: The red-tailed tropicbird can carry relatively large prey for its size, parent birds commonly bearing dolphin fish that weighed 120 g—16% of their own weight—to their chicks. When incubating during the day in a shaded nest, this bird has an average temperature of 39 °C (102 °F), compared to its average temperature when incubating at night of 37.1 °C (98.8 °F). The difference
12423-539: The red-tailed tropicbird on the Pacific Ocean in March 1769 on James Cook's first voyage , noting that it was a different species to the familiar red-billed tropicbird . He gave it the name Phaeton erubescens . It was the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon who formally described the species in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux in 1781, noting it was a native of Isle de France (Mauritius). The bird
12546-503: The removal of exotic invaders from increasingly large islands. Feral cats have been removed from Ascension Island , Arctic foxes from many islands in the Aleutian Islands , and rats from Campbell Island . The removal of these introduced species has led to increases in numbers of species under pressure and even the return of extirpated ones. After the removal of cats from Ascension Island, seabirds began to nest there again for
12669-540: The rest of their bodies. Chicks remain in the nest for 67 to 91 days until they fledge. The red-tailed tropicbird is mostly a plunge diver , diving anywhere from an above-water height of 6 to 50 metres (20 to 164 ft), to a depth of about 4.5 metres (15 ft), although this may change seasonally. When diving, it remains briefly submerged—one study on Christmas Island came up with an average time of 26.6 seconds—generally swallowing its prey before surfacing. The red-tailed tropicbird sometimes catches flying fish in
12792-482: The rules of botanical nomenclature a nomen nudum is not validly published . The glossary of the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants gives this definition: A designation of a new taxon published without a description or diagnosis or reference to a description or diagnosis. The requirements for the diagnosis or description are covered by articles 32, 36, 41, 42, and 44. From 1 January 1935 to 31 December 2011, to be validly published it
12915-465: The same mate for several seasons, and many petrel species mate for life. Albatrosses and procellariids , which mate for life, take many years to form a pair bond before they breed, and the albatrosses have an elaborate breeding dance that is part of pair-bond formation. Ninety-five percent of seabirds are colonial, and seabird colonies are among the largest bird colonies in the world, providing one of Earth's great wildlife spectacles. Colonies of over
13038-653: The sea at all, spending their lives on lakes, rivers, swamps and, in the case of some of the gulls, cities and agricultural land. In these cases, it is thought that these terrestrial or freshwater birds evolved from marine ancestors. Some seabirds, principally those that nest in tundra , as skuas and phalaropes do, will migrate over land as well. The more marine species, such as petrels, auks and gannets , are more restricted in their habits, but are occasionally seen inland as vagrants. This most commonly happens to young inexperienced birds, but can happen in great numbers to exhausted adults after large storms , an event known as
13161-507: The sea's edge (coast), but are also not treated as seabirds. Sea eagles and other fish-eating birds of prey are also typically excluded, however tied to marine environments they may be. German ornithologist Gerald Mayr defined the "core waterbird" clade Aequornithes in 2010. This lineage gives rise to the Gaviiformes , Sphenisciformes , Procellariiformes, Ciconiiformes , Suliformes and Pelecaniformes . The tropicbirds are part of
13284-407: The sea. Wing morphology has been shaped by the niche an individual species or family has evolved , so that looking at a wing's shape and loading can tell a scientist about its life feeding behaviour. Longer wings and low wing loading are typical of more pelagic species, while diving species have shorter wings. Species such as the wandering albatross , which forage over huge areas of sea, have
13407-416: The skewed sex ratio of western gulls in southern California. Oil spills are also a threat to seabirds: the oil is toxic, and bird feathers become saturated by the oil, causing them to lose their waterproofing. Oil pollution in particular threatens species with restricted ranges or already depressed populations. Climate change mainly affect seabirds via changes to their habitat : various processes in
13530-432: The skills of plunge-diving take several years to fully develop—once mature, they can dive from 20 m (66 ft) above the water's surface, shifting the body before impact to avoid injury. It may be that plunge divers are restricted in their hunting grounds to clear waters that afford a view of their prey from the air. While they are the dominant guild in the tropics, the link between plunge diving and water clarity
13653-496: The spread of the northern fulmar through the United Kingdom is attributed in part to the availability of discards. Discards generally benefit surface feeders, such as gannets and petrels, to the detriment of pursuit divers like penguins and guillemots, which can get entangled in the nets. Fisheries also have negative effects on seabirds, and these effects, particularly on the long-lived and slow-breeding albatrosses, are
13776-695: The squid eaten are too large to have been caught alive, and include mid-water species likely to be beyond the reach of albatrosses. Some species will also feed on other seabirds; for example, gulls, skuas and pelicans will often take eggs, chicks and even small adult seabirds from nesting colonies, while the giant petrels can kill prey up to the size of small penguins and seal pups. Seabirds' life histories are dramatically different from those of land birds. In general, they are K-selected , live much longer (anywhere between twenty and sixty years), delay breeding for longer (for up to ten years), and invest more effort into fewer young. Most species will only have one clutch
13899-495: The theme. Many seabirds feed on the ocean's surface, as the action of marine currents often concentrates food such as krill , forage fish , squid , or other prey items within reach of a dipped head. Surface feeding itself can be broken up into two different approaches, surface feeding while flying (for example as practiced by gadfly petrels , frigatebirds , and storm petrels ), and surface feeding while swimming (examples of which are practiced by gulls , fulmars , many of
14022-491: The three species ( Red and Red-necked ) are oceanic for nine months of the year, crossing the equator to feed pelagically. Loons and grebes , which nest on lakes but winter at sea, are usually categorized as water birds, not seabirds. Although there are a number of sea ducks in the family Anatidae that are truly marine in the winter, by convention they are usually excluded from the seabird grouping. Many waders (or shorebirds) and herons are also highly marine, living on
14145-457: The toes are pale blue-mauve, while the webbing and rest of the toes are black. The white feathers of the head and rump have concealed dark brown bases, while those of the mantle, back, tail rectrices and tail coverts have dark brown shaft bases. The two long tail feathers are orange or red with white bases for around a tenth of their length, and can be hard to see when the bird is flying. The white wings are marked by dark chevron -shaped patches on
14268-499: The tropicbirds and some penguins), but most of the colour in seabirds appears in the bills and legs. The plumage of seabirds is thought in many cases to be for camouflage , both defensive (the colour of US Navy battleships is the same as that of Antarctic prions , and in both cases it reduces visibility at sea) and aggressive (the white underside possessed by many seabirds helps hide them from prey below). The usually black wing tips help prevent wear, as they contain melanins that help
14391-547: The two combatants locking bills and wrestling for up to 90 minutes. Mate choice is likely to be based partially on the length of the tail streamers, a bird having longer tail streamers being more attractive as a mate. This tropicbird also probably mates assortatively for tail streamer length, meaning mates likely have streamers of about equal length. In the leadup to breeding, males initiate an aerial courtship display of flying in large circles, alternating between gliding, short periods of rapid wing-beating, and low flight within
14514-584: Was 22 metres (72 ft); another study, this time on Cory's shearwaters nesting near Corsica , found that of nine out of 61 male chicks that returned to breed at their natal colony bred in the burrow they were raised in, and two actually bred with their own mother. Colonies are usually situated on islands, cliffs or headlands, which land mammals have difficulty accessing. This is thought to provide protection to seabirds, which are often very clumsy on land. Coloniality often arises in types of bird that do not defend feeding territories (such as swifts , which have
14637-465: Was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text. Buffon did not include a scientific name with his description but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial name Phaethon rubricauda in his catalogue of
14760-463: Was also required that the description or diagnosis be in Latin as reaffirmed in the Melbourne Code article 39. After 2011 it was only recommended that the authors include or cite a Latin or English description or diagnosis. Nomina nuda that were published before 1 January 1959 can be used to establish a cultivar name. For example, Veronica sutherlandii , a nomen nudum , has been used as
14883-622: Was convinced of the need to declare Pelican Island in Florida a National Wildlife Refuge to protect the bird colonies (including the nesting brown pelicans ), and in 1909 he protected the Farallon Islands. Today many important seabird colonies are given some measure of protection, from Heron Island in Australia to Triangle Island in British Columbia. Island restoration techniques, pioneered by New Zealand, enable
15006-511: Was left to German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin to describe the species, which he did as Phaeton phoenicuros and P. melanorhynchos respectively in the 13th edition of Systema Naturae in 1788. Latham later described this black-billed specimen as the New Holland tropicbird, giving it the name Phaethon novae-hollandiae . The British naturalist Walter Rothschild reviewed the described names and specimens in 1900 and concluded that
15129-485: Was studied over eight years to see if there were effects from potential contaminants. There appeared to be no impact on survival during the study period, although young birds from downwind of the plant were less likely to return there than those upwind of the plant—possibly due to the more intact vegetation at the latter site. Scientists studying the bird on Lady Elliot Island off the Queensland coast in 2020 say that
#582417