Magnificent Birds

Magnificent Frigatebird

The Magnificent Frigatebird sure lives up to its name; male birds have a magnificent red throat pouch which is inflated like a balloon in the breeding season. This is the only time of the year that they come to land, as they spend the rest of the year out at sea. These frigatebirds are widespread in the tropical Atlantic Ocean, south of Forida and the Carribean. It also breeds along the Pacific coast from Mexico to Ecuador. Although it spends most of its life over the ocean, it almost never lands on the water, taking food items in flight. They alternately climb in thermals, to altitudes as high as 1.5 miles (2500 meters) and then descend to near the water surface before rising up again. The only other bird known to spend days and nights on the wing is the Common Swift, which breeds in Europe and Asia and winters in Africa.

Magnificent Frigatebird
Photo by dakluza

If you like this cute frigatebird you may also like our other Birdorable seabirds.

Comments

Spurwing Plover on June 17, 2020 at 3:00 AM wrote:
They have been know to work in a mated pair in taking fish from a Booby one bird comes up behind the Booby and flips him over the Booby drops the Fish and its Partner grabs the fish
Spurwing Plover on May 25, 2022 at 7:21 AM wrote:
Q. What did the Seabird say when he dropped his fish? A.Frigate

Leave a comment

Comments with links or HTML will be deleted. Your comment will be published pending approval.
Your email address will not be published

2013 Bonanza Bird #19: King Bird-of-paradise

We're adding one new bird each day until we reach our 500th Birdorable species on the last day of July. Today's Bonanza bird is the King Bird-of-paradise. The King Bird-of-paradise is the smallest of the bird-of-paradise family. It lives in Papau New Guinea...

Crane Week Bird Term: Precocial

We're celebrating cranes on the Birdorable blog this week! Today we'd like to share a bird term that relates to cranes and other birds. Let's learn about what it means to be precocial! The term precocial comes from the Latin praecocia, which...

2013 Bonanza Bird #24: Plain Chachalaca

The end is in sight! We're continuing to add new birds and today's is the 24th species in the current Bonanza. Today's Bonanza bird is the Plain Chachalaca. Plain Chachalacas are large grouse-like birds related to curassows and guans. They are...

New Coloring Pages: Passenger Pigeon, Southern Ground Hornbill & European Bee-eater

To celebrate our 500th Birdorable, we've added three new coloring pages to our website today. Go to Coloring Pages to download the PDFs. You can visit the meet pages for each bird to check the colors: Passenger Pigeon, Southern Ground Hornbill and European...